Arrest of power-grid saboteur Daniel V. near Aachen: trampled grass gave away his hiding place
Two motorway police officers discovered a camouflaged tent near Weisweiler power station – a detail in the grass led to the arrest of the 48-year-old suspect.
Camouflaged tent in the bushes: how two police officers tracked down the sought-after energy saboteur
A patch of trampled grass on a field path – that was the decisive clue. As WELT reports, it was precisely this detail that on Tuesday led to the arrest of the 48-year-old alleged energy saboteur Daniel V., who had been sought across Europe.
Two young motorway police officers, who were not even officially involved in the large-scale manhunt, followed the trail in the grass and discovered, around 200 metres off the path, a man who had hidden himself in a bush – approximately 800 metres from Weisweiler power station near Aachen. One of the officers had switched on his body camera; the German Press Agency was able to view the recordings.
The footage shows a police officer drawing his pistol and ordering the man to lie on the ground. He offered no resistance. He immediately admitted to being the wanted man, the officers subsequently reported. Then the handcuffs clicked shut. The camera pans to the side – a tent visible, which the 48-year-old had concealed in the bushes.
Operations director Frank Wißbaum explained to the German Press Agency that the terrain had previously been surveyed with helicopters and drones – the tent had simply not been recognisable from the air owing to its effective camouflage. Up to 1,700 personnel were deployed over several days. "The two young colleagues did the detective work really well," Wißbaum said in praise.
Confession letter with full name – and a puzzled investigation team
For days, attacks on the power grid in North Rhine-Westphalia, Brandenburg and Saxony had made headlines. The suspect is alleged to have fired homemade rockets with thin wires over high-voltage power lines in order to trigger short circuits. The crime scenes were more than 700 kilometres apart – in Brandenburg and Saxony on one hand, in the Rhineland lignite mining region on the other. Wißbaum described this as atypical for a single perpetrator.
Particularly striking: the suspect sent confession letters with his full name to several media outlets. "Such conduct is quite rare. We were clear: the perpetrator wanted to be recognised and found," said Wißbaum. "But why?" The investigators drew up perpetrator profiles and developed various hypotheses.
One of these suggested the 48-year-old might join the climate-activism scene in Hambacher Forest. On the Friday before the arrest, officers found his conspicuous camping lorry nearby – not hidden, but displayed, as it were, on a car park. "That also showed us again: he wants to draw attention to himself," said Wißbaum. Several hundred police officers subsequently combed through Hambacher Forest – without success.
Third confession letter and a final rocket in the night
The next concrete lead came on the Monday before the arrest: at Weisweiler power station, new launching devices appeared, together with a third confession letter. In it, the suspect had referred to current media reports and the status of the investigation. "Then it was clear: he had read everything. We were followed by him, so to speak, at every step," Wißbaum reported.
As officers assumed the 48-year-old was no longer mobile by vehicle, the search concentrated on the area around the power station. On Monday evening around 21.00 hours, still during the ongoing operation, another rocket was fired – it missed the high-voltage power line, however, and caused no damage.
Cologne's police president Johannes Hermanns described the operation as nerve-wracking. "The people had no time to get out of their boots before the next operation was already underway."
Notebook with 160 sabotage targets – Federal Prosecutor takes over
The relief following the arrest was considerable – not least because a notebook was found in the suspect's motorhome with handwritten notes on more than 160 previous and possible further sabotage targets. In North Rhine-Westphalia alone, more than 40 rocket launching devices were identified.
The suspect named seven further locations to the judge that he had used as storage sites, as North Rhine-Westphalia's Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) informed the state parliament. The police already found items at three of these locations. The suspect guided officers in a patrol car to the individual sites.
Meanwhile, the Federal Prosecutor's Office has taken over the investigation against the suspect.
Source: WELT