Arrest after power grid attacks: Police arrest author of confession letter

dpa/epd/afp/taz | After a series of sabotage attacks on the German power grid, the police arrested the 48-year-old suspect. Cologne police forces caught the man from Gevelsberg (Ennepe-Ruhr district) on Tuesday morning in the area around the Weisweiler power plant in Eschweiler, Rhineland, the Cologne police said. The man had additional explosives with him when he was arrested and did not offer any resistance.

The Weisweiler power plant is powered by brown coal, which is mined in a neighboring opencast mine. For years it has been repeatedly criticized by climate activists, who have sometimes blocked the power plant.

In the immediate vicinity, police officers also found a tent set up in the undergrowth that was equipped with additional explosives. The items were initially examined by a defuser from the North Rhine-Westphalia State Criminal Police Office. There is an arrest warrant from the Cottbus public prosecutor's office against the 48-year-old.

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 man now arrested had written down detailed information about his actions in several letters of confession. The first was received by the taz. The author cited the use of fossil fuels, which would cause “immeasurable suffering,” as the motivation for the crime in Jänschwalde, but did not elaborate further.

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.

At the request of the Cottbus public prosecutor's office, the suspect's apartment in Gevelsberg in the Ruhr area was searched on Friday. Shortly afterwards, investigators found the 48-year-old's vehicle in the Hambacher Forest near Düren and confiscated evidence. But the man himself had not been found.

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.