Arrest after sabotage: 48-year-old fired wires at high-voltage power lines in North Rhine-Westphalia
A 48-year-old man from Gevelsberg has been arrested. He is said to have triggered short circuits in German power grids using home-made rockets.
Suspect arrested after attacks on German power grid
According to swissinfo.ch, citing news agency Keystone-SDA, German authorities have arrested a 48-year-old man from Gevelsberg in the southern Ruhr area. A manhunt for him had been underway for several days.
The suspect is said to have attempted in North Rhine-Westphalia, Brandenburg and Saxony to fire thin wires over high-voltage power lines using home-made rockets, thereby triggering short circuits. On Monday, several launching devices were discovered near Weisweiler power station – in the immediate vicinity of where the suspect was subsequently arrested. Investigators also found another confession letter at that location.
In at least two cases, the plan apparently succeeded. In Bergheim, west of Cologne, a short circuit disabled several blocks of a power station for several days. At the Turnow-Preilack transformer station near Jänschwalde power station in Brandenburg, there were two short circuits – more than 20 home-made rockets had fired conductive material onto the lines. In neither case did a power cut affect the public.
Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt described the acts as the obvious "climate terrorism" of a lone actor. The investigating authorities consider the confession letters in question to be authentic and attribute them to the 48-year-old. In the letters, the attacks are justified with resistance to fossil fuels. "Electricity generation from fossil fuels is a crime," it states. In all three affected states, lignite continues to be mined and used for electricity generation.
Source: Google News CH — Crime (de)