BERLIN // Three Syrians in Germany recognised a terror suspect from a wanted poster, tied him up in their apartment and called police early Monday, ending a nearly two-day hunt.
Jaber Albakr, 22, a Syrian man who was granted asylum in Germany, is suspected of preparing a bomb attack in the country with high explosives. He was motivated by extremism and likely linked to ISIL, prosecutors said.
Albakr was arrested shortly after midnight in the eastern city of Leipzig, police said.
Leipzig is around 80 kilometers from Chemnitz, the city where he had evaded authorities on Saturday after they found several hundred grams of a volatile explosive at an apartment there.
The suspect approached his fellow countrymen at the Leipzig main train station and asked them if they could accommodate him, and they agreed.
The three Syrians recognised Albakr from police wanted posters that had been distributed online and over social media, said Saxony criminal police chief Joerg Michaelis.
Two of them bound and held Albakr at their apartment while the other brought a mobile phone photo of Albakr to a local police station, leading to the suspect’s arrest.
Albakr had been on the radar of the country’s domestic intelligence agency since last month. Mr Michaelis said that “the behavior and actions of the suspect currently speak for an IS context.”
Police would not release any further information about the three Syrians, citing security concerns.
If the indications of an Islamic extremist background were substantiated, “the people who gave the tip are of course in danger”, said Mr Michaelis.
Germany on Monday hailed three Syrians who helped police capture Albakr, with social media coming alive with jibes against anti-migrant protesters.
“Syrian turns in terror suspect. I’m celebrating this. What about you, Pegida and co?” said Julia Frick on Twitter, in reference to the Islamophobic movement that has been ranting against migrants in the eastern city of Dresden.
Another Twitter user took a dig at the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has been running an aggressive campaign against asylum seekers.
“Syrian turns in terror suspect tied up to police – that’s precisely the kind of citizen watch that AfD and Pegida like to drone on about,” tweeted Florian Flade.
Federal prosecutors on Monday also said that Khalil A, a 33-year-old Syrian at whose Chemnitz apartment Albakr kept the explosives, was arrested as a co-conspirator in the alleged bomb plot.
In July, two attacks carried out by asylum-seekers and claimed by ISIL, in which multiple people were injured and the assailants were killed, put Germany on edge – along with two other attacks unrelated to extremism.* Associated Press and Agence France-Presse
