A 19-year-old Isis suspect was spying major Berlin landmarks as targets for attack, according to a court document released on Thursday.
A 19-year-old Syrian man, currently under arrest, spied on the Brandenburg Gate, the German parliament (Bundestag) building and Alexanderplatz with Berlin’s iconic TV Tower, according to a document published on Thursday by Germany’s highest court, the Federal Court of Justice (BGH)
The court had released the document to announce a decision to extend an investigation into the man by three months.
According to the document, the suspect had fallen in with Isis in 2013 and undergone military training with them.
In 2015 he travelled to Germany with his brother-in-law at the behest of his parents and arrived in August of that year as an asylum seeker. He stayed in touch with Isis through his smartphone, the court document says.
“In order to improve Isis’s knowledge about potential attack targets in Germany, the accused scouted out… up to February 10th 2016, Berlin Alexanderplatz, the Brandenburg Gate and the area around the parliament building,” for his Isis contact, the document states.
It explains that he then sent word to his contact about how many people and tourist buses were at these places at different times of day.
He also offered to “commit a non-specified attack in Germany” himself, “or alternatively with two unknown people”.
In March he was arrested and in October it was reported that he had looked for attack locations in Berlin, though nothing specific had been named.
Germany is on edge after two violent incidents over the summer that were linked to Isis, as well as the recent arrests of two Syrian asylum seekers suspected of planning attacks.
