Attempted bombings on July 31, 2006

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dortmund Central Station during the closure

The attempted bomb attacks on July 31, 2006 were a failed Islamist terrorist attack on German railroad trains. The two suitcase bombs used were brought into the trains in Cologne , but were not explosive due to their design.

Bombs

The bombs consisted, among other things, of a time fuse , a gas bottle and a container with gasoline , which were hidden in a trolley case . A real explosive was not contained , apart from the small amount of initial explosive in the detonator, and there was no oxygen source that could result in an explosive mixture with the gasoline and / or gas (the oxygen partial pressure of normal room air is not high enough to allow such a construction To explode). The bombs were taken by the perpetrators in Cologne Central Station on two regional trains . The perpetrators each traveled one station on the trains, got off again in Troisdorf or Cologne-Deutz and left the suitcases with the bombs on the trains, as if they had accidentally forgotten their luggage. The time detonators were set to go off at 2:30 p.m. It was ignited, but the bombs did not explode due to a lack of explosives or a source of oxygen.

Replica of one of the suitcase bombs found on July 31, 2006 in the regional trains of Deutsche Bahn from Aachen to Hamm and Mönchengladbach to Koblenz, traveling exhibition of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution .

The first suitcase was on Regional Express 1 from Aachen Hauptbahnhof to Hamm (Westphalia) . He was discovered on the same day by a train attendant in a group of four seats in a double-decker car at around 2:40 p.m. and handed in at around 3:55 p.m. at the discovery site at Dortmund Central Station . When the suitcase was opened, the bomb was recognized and the federal police were notified. At around 7:35 p.m. it was fired at by USBV defusers with a water cannon and made unsuitable. It contained eleven liters of butane gas in a gas bottle, 4.5 liters of mixed gasoline, an alarm clock and wires.

The second suitcase with a similar device was seized on the same day at Koblenz main station . It was deposited on a regional train to Koblenz at Cologne Central Station. The bomb wasn't discovered until the suitcase was opened the next day.

According to the Focus , an investigation by the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing has shown that the suitcase bombs could have caused a fireball with a diameter of 15 meters and metal fragments flying around within a hundred meters. The destructive power of the bombs would be comparable to the effects of the explosive devices in the terrorist attacks on July 7, 2005 in London . Both trains would probably have derailed in the explosion. According to Lebanese indictment against Jihad Hamad also in one of the suitcases cornstarch have found that after an explosion in the form of particulate matter put on the airways of the victim and should thus lead to other victims by suffocation.

Investigations

Both suitcase bombers (also known as Cologne's suitcase bombers ) were filmed by the surveillance cameras in Cologne Central Station. The perpetrators could therefore be searched for with pictures and video films.

On the day of the crime, the perpetrators flew from Cologne-Bonn Airport to Istanbul and on to Damascus in Syria . From there they traveled overland to Lebanon . Youssef Mohamad al-Hajdib traveled back to Kiel via Frankfurt Airport on August 8, 2006 .

The video recordings were published on August 18, 2006 and a reward of 50,000 euros was advertised for tips. The 21-year-old Youssef Mohamad al-Hajdib was arrested on August 19, 2006 at 3:53 a.m. in a train station restaurant in Kiel and transferred to custody. He comes from Lebanon. He lived in Germany since 2004, studied mechatronics at the Kiel University of Applied Sciences since February 2005 and lived in a student residence . In the summer of 2007, the federal prosecutor brought charges against him. The German authorities received the decisive information about his arrest from the Lebanese military intelligence service, which tracked down the alleged terrorist through taped telephone calls. The Lebanese authorities consider parts of the family to be sympathizers of militant Islamism and were therefore under surveillance.

The 20-year-old Jihad Hamad surrendered to the authorities in Tripoli on August 25, 2006 and was transferred to a prison in Lebanon.

The public prosecutor's office assumed that the two perpetrators belonged to a multi-headed terrorist group close to Hizb ut-Tahrir . Akkar, 24, was arrested as a suspect in northern Lebanon.

The investigation was led by the then Federal Prosecutor Monika Harms .

According to the investigation files, the original aim of the attack was supposed to have been to blow up the Hohenzollern Bridge in Cologne . This plan is said to have been changed due to a lack of sufficient explosives. Investigators from the Federal Criminal Police Office found a bomb construction plan on an erased hard drive , which the two suspected Lebanese Jihad Hamad and Youssef Mohamad el-Hajdib could have used as instructions for building their explosives.

Legal proceedings

In early 2007, six Lebanese people were charged with “attempting to murder people on trains in Germany” in Beirut. The prosecutor called for life imprisonment with forced labor for the suspects. An extradition to Germany was considered not possible. On April 11, 2007, the trial of Hamad began in Beirut.

On May 20, 2007, Saddam al-Hajdib, Youssef's brother, also wanted by the police, was killed in the skirmishes between the Lebanese army and radical Islamists of the terrorist organization Fatah al-Islam in the Palestinian refugee camp Nahr al-Bared in northern Lebanon. Saddam was considered "number 4" of the Lebanese Fatah al-Islam, which is said to be close to al-Qaeda and is responsible for bomb attacks on civilians in Christian residential areas.

On December 18, 2007, Jihad Hamad was sentenced to twelve years in Beirut and Youssef al-Hajdib to life imprisonment in absentia. The first day of the trial against the latter took place on the same day before the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court . In the German court case, a witness confirmed that the two Lebanese had also considered attacks on the Cologne stadium during the 2006 World Cup and on Cologne's Hohenzollern Bridge.

On December 9, 2008, al-Hajdib was sentenced to life imprisonment for attempted murder of an unspecified number of people and attempted causing an explosive device. His defense lawyer announced the appeal before the Federal Court of Justice before the end of the trial . However, the Federal Court of Justice rejected the appeal on September 24, 2009 as unfounded, which means that the judgment has become final. In mid-2020, al-Hajdib was finally deported to Lebanon.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://juris.bundesgerichtshof.de/cgi-bin/rechtsprechung/document.py?Gericht=bgh&Art=pm&pm_nummer=0013/10
  2. ↑ Chronology. The search for the bombers , in: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung / dpa , August 24, 2006.
  3. ^ " The chronology of the suitcase bomber search ( memento of October 23, 2008 in the Internet Archive )", in: Netzeitung , August 20, 2006.
  4. ↑ " Starch should increase suffering ", in: Focus news magazine , issue 16/2007 of April 16, 2007, page 14.
  5. ↑ " Arrest warrant against suitcase bombers issued ( memento of September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive )", in: Netzeitung , August 20, 2006.
  6. ↑ Alexander Schwabe and Brenda Strohmaier: " Traces to Hamburg and Mülheim ", in: Spiegel Online , August 21, 2006.
  7. ↑ dpa : " Suitcase bombs. Traces on the Internet ”, in: sueddeutsche.de , August 27, 2006.
  8. ^ " Unsuccessful attacks on regional trains in Dortmund and Koblenz: arrest warrant against Syrian student Fadi AS lifted ", press release of the Attorney General , No. 40/2006, September 14, 2006.
  9. ^ "Cologne suitcase bombers wanted to fight in Iraq", in: Der Spiegel , No. 15, April 7, 2007, p. 32.
  10. ↑ Annette Ramelsberger : " BKA finds instructions for building explosives ", in: sueddeutsche.de , March 7, 2007
  11. ^ " Heavy fighting and an attack in Lebanon ", in: FAZ.net , May 20, 2007.
  12. ^ " Suitcase bomb suspect killed in Lebanon ", in: Welt Online , May 20, 2007.
  13. ↑ “ Many dead in heavy fighting in Lebanon ”, in: Spiegel Online , May 21, 2007.
  14. ^ Philipp Wittrock: " Suitcase bombers from a good home ", in: Spiegel Online , December 18, 2007
  15. ↑ AFP : " Witness: 'suitcase bombers' considering attack on World Cup stadium ", in: FAZ.net , January 10, 2008.
  16. ↑ " Sentenced to life imprisonment - suitcase bomber mocks the court ( memento of the original dated December 12, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ", In: RP-online , December 9, 2008. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rp-online.de
  17. ↑ Life imprisonment for "suitcase bombers" - "A deeply terrorist act" By Markus Bickel, FAZ December 9, 2008
  18. ↑ http://juris.bundesgerichtshof.de/cgi-bin/rechtsprechung/document.py?Gericht=bgh&Art=pm&pm_nummer=0013/10
  19. ↑ https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/kofferbomber-koeln-abschnitte-101.html