Sabotage at substations in North Rhine-Westphalia: police launch nationwide manhunt for Daniel V.
Following attacks on substations in North Rhine-Westphalia and Brandenburg, a nationwide manhunt is underway. A claim of responsibility letter names the struggle against fossil fuels as the motive.
Major operation in Weisweiler: police secure substation near Aachen
Following several acts of sabotage against electricity infrastructure in North Rhine-Westphalia and Brandenburg, police are launching a nationwide search for a suspect. According to WELT, investigators have a claim of responsibility letter which, according to news agency AFP situation reports, is being taken seriously. "We have a claim of responsibility letter and we are following up on the leads," said a police spokesman.
According to information from "Bild", the man being sought is Daniel V. from Gevelsberg in Ennepe-Ruhr district. The letter was sent by post to "taz", as the newspaper reported. Whether Daniel V. is actually a suspect or a copycat remains to be determined, a spokesman stressed.
Operation in Weisweiler since Friday morning
Since Friday morning, police have been operating in the area near Aachen. Because the substation in Weisweiler was named in the claim of responsibility letter, officers deployed there. Police increasingly concentrated forces around the Weisweiler power plant. Forensic evidence officers were deployed in protective suits and with respiratory protection; they concentrated on several locations on a field and in bushes near the power plant and a substation in the town of Eschweiler, as reported by a dpa reporter on the scene. Officers documented the areas photographically.
Whether the officers in Weisweiler found suspicious objects remained initially unclear.
Suspicious launching devices discovered in Dormagen
The starting point for the major operation was a discovery in Dormagen, located between Düsseldorf and Cologne. On Thursday evening, a pedestrian had discovered alleged launching devices at a substation there and alerted the authorities. According to police, the structures found bear a strong resemblance to those devices with which unknown perpetrators had shot cables over overhead lines in Bergheim, west of Cologne, thereby disabling several power plant blocks. However, no damage to critical infrastructure occurred in Dormagen. The police emphasised that investigations there were still in their early stages.
According to information from "Bild", the launching devices had time-delay switches and copper wires attached. Police are treating the incident as an act of sabotage.
Attacks also in Brandenburg and further inspections
The case is part of a series of sabotage attempts. Recently, unknown individuals had attacked electricity lines in Jänschwalde in Brandenburg and in Bergheim. In Lower Saxony, emergency crews also inspected the grounds of a substation in Ganderkesee near Oldenburg. There was subsequently an all-clear: overnight, merely an open switchboard cabinet had been discovered. The grounds had been "thoroughly inspected" immediately due to the "particular significance" of the installation; no damage or persons on the grounds were found.
Motive: struggle against fossil fuels
On Thursday evening, "taz" reported that it had received a claim of responsibility letter regarding the incident in Brandenburg, posted according to the postmark from North Rhine-Westphalia. In it, the sender presents himself as a lone actor who describes in detail the homemade rockets used. As motive, he cited the "immeasurable suffering" caused by the use of fossil fuels. Several media outlets reported consistently that the claim of responsibility letter named the struggle against fossil fuels as the motive for the act.
"taz" pointed out following its own research that it could not be definitively established whether the author of the letter was also the perpetrator. The paper emphasised that the attack in Bergheim was, moreover, not mentioned in this letter. Police made no statements of their own regarding the information about the motive.
Source: WELT