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Germany attack: Two arrests made in Tunisia over foiled biological attack

Counter terror police detain suspects in connection with ricin plot uncovered in Cologne in June

Tom Barnes
Friday 03 August 2018 14:37 BST
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Police found a quantity of the deadly poison ricin during a raid at a flat in Cologne in June
Police found a quantity of the deadly poison ricin during a raid at a flat in Cologne in June

Two people have been arrested in Tunisia over a failed attack in Germany involving the deadly biological agent ricin and a bomb.

Counter-terror authorities in the north African state said they had identified two people who had been working in “close association” with a man suspected of plotting an attack in Germany.

Police in Cologne had arrested the 29-year-old, a Tunisian national known only as Sief Allah H, in June following a raid on a block of flats in which ricin was discovered.

The Tunisian interior ministry said the first of the two terror suspects had attempted to join up with militant groups in Syria, but had turned his attention to Germany when his original plan failed.

They alleged the man made contact with the suspect arrested in Cologne, with the pair agreeing to carry out parallel terror attacks in Tunisia and Germany using conventional bombs.

Authorities in Tunis said the second man had been detained on suspicion of producing fake travel documents.

It is claimed the papers were intended to help Sief Allah H escape Germany and travel across Europe following the planned terror attack.

The men have been referred to the public prosecutor’s office.

Police arrested both Sief Allah H and his wife following the raid in June, which German authorities said they believed had thwarted a terror attack.

A quantity of ricin was discovered at the property capable of killing up to 1,000 people.

The poison, made from castor beans, is 6,000 times stronger than cyanide and a dose the size of two gains of salt can kill an adult human in less than 48 hours.

There is no known antidote to its effects.

The toxin was famously used in the assassination of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov in London in 1978, when a minuscule but deadly dosage was fired into his body from an umbrella tip.

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