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Charges over Bonn bomb attempt

March 14, 2014

A 26-year-old man has been charged with planting a pipe bomb at the main railway station in the former Germany capital of Bonn in 2012, prosecutors have announced. The bomb's poor construction meant it never detonated.

https://p.dw.com/p/1BQ6J
Police cordon off parts of Bonn railway station after the bomb scare in December 2012. Photo: dpa
Image: picture alliance / dpa

Federal prosecutors from a court in Düsseldorf said on Friday that the man, known only as Marco G., is accused of leaving a home-made pipe bomb in a sports bag on a platform at the station on December 10, 2012. He has been charged with attempted murder and attempting to cause an explosion.

A statement from the prosecutor's office said Marco G. was also charged with planning to assassinate Markus Beisicht, the leader of the political group Pro NRW. The statement said he and three accomplices had bought guns and a silencer to prepare for the assassination. They also stand accused of planning further attacks on the Pro NRW, a far-right, anti-Muslim political party.

The other three charged are 43-year-old Albanian Enea B., 25-year-old German-Turkish man Koray D. and 24-year-old German Tayfun S.

All four men were arrested on the night before the planned assassination was to take place, on March 13. If convicted, Marco G. could face life in prison. The three other men could spend up to 15 years in prison.

"The men had been radicalized under the influence of militant Islamist propaganda," federal prosecutor Harald Range said on Friday.

Range added the men had been provoked by the display at Pro NRW meetings of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.

ph/tj (Reuters, AP, epd, dpa)