Arrest after attacks: Police arrest author of confession letter

dpa/taz | After a series of sabotage attacks on the German power grid, the police arrested the 48-year-old suspect. According to dpa information, the man was noticed by the police near the Weisweiler power plant near Aachen.

The police had previously found another letter of responsibility near the power plant - along with several launchers on a high-voltage line. The police did not want to say anything about the content for tactical reasons.

The 48-year-old suspect who has now been arrested had written down detailed information about his actions in several letters of confession. The first was received by the taz.

He is said to have tried to shoot a thin wire over high-voltage lines with self-made rockets in several places in North Rhine-Westphalia, Brandenburg and Saxony and thus trigger a short circuit.

In at least two cases, the perpetrator's plan succeeded. In Bergheim, west of Cologne, several units of a power plant were shut down for a few days. In Brandenburg there were two short circuits at the Turnow-Preilack substation near the Jänschwalde power plant. More than 20 self-made rockets are said to have fired conductive material onto the high-voltage lines there. There was no power outage during either incident.

During the search in Weisweiler, lightning could be seen and banging noises could be heard on Monday evening around 9 p.m., the police reported. These could possibly indicate another short circuit on the power lines. However, no damage has been found so far, the police said.

Emergency services had actually already searched the area in Weisweiler with great effort last week. When asked, the investigators did not say whether the launching devices and the confession letter that had now been discovered were overlooked at the time or whether the perpetrator had only recently installed them there.

After the new discovery, the emergency services were back on site with a large contingent on Tuesday. Defusers from the State Criminal Police Office were on standby in case additional launchers were found. A drone with a thermal imaging camera was also used.