FRANKFURT, Germany — German police staged
nationwide raids on Wednesday and arrested 25 people suspected of belonging to
a far-right “terror cell” plotting to overthrow the government and attack
parliament.اضافة اعلان
Around 3,000 officers including elite anti-terror
units took part in the early morning raids and searched more than 130
properties, in what German media described as one of the country’s largest
police actions ever against extremists.
The raids targeted
alleged members of the “Citizens of the Reich” (Reichsbuerger) movement
suspected of “having made concrete preparations to violently force their way
into the German parliament with a small armed group”, federal prosecutors said
in a statement.
Those arrested are accused of having formed “a
terrorist group by the end of November 2021 at the latest, which had set itself
the goal of overcoming the existing state order in Germany and replacing it
with their own kind of state”, they said.
Two of the 25 arrests were made abroad, in Austria
and Italy.
The prosecutors in Karlsruhe said they had
identified a further 27 people as suspected members or supporters of the terror
network.
“The accused are united by a deep rejection of state
institutions and the free, democratic basic order of ... Germany,” they said.
‘Into the abyss’
The Reichsbuerger movement
includes neo-Nazis, conspiracy theorists, and gun enthusiasts who reject the
legitimacy of the modern German republic.
Its followers generally believe in the continued
existence of the pre-World War I German Reich, or empire, under a monarchy and
several groups have declared their own states.
Long dismissed as malcontents and oddballs, the
Reichsbuerger have become increasingly radicalized in recent years and are seen
as a growing security threat.
The investigation gave “a look into the abyss” of
far-right terror from the movement, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said in a
statement.
According to prosecutors, the terror cell suspects
believe in Reichsbuerger and QAnon conspiracy theories and are “strongly
convinced” that Germany is run by a “deep state” that needs to be toppled.
The suspects were aware that their plan “could only
be realized by using military means and violence against state
representatives,” prosecutors said.
They allegedly planned to appoint one of the
arrested suspects, identified by local media as aristocrat and businessman
Prince Heinrich XIII Reuss, as Germany’s new leader after the coup.
Defend democracy
As part of the preparations
for the coup, members of the alleged terror cell acquired weapons, organized
shooting practice, and tried to recruit new followers, particularly among the
military and police, according to prosecutors.
Former soldiers are believed to be among the members
of the recently established terror group, they said.
An ex-MP for the far-right AfD party was also among
those accused of being part of the plot, according to German media reports.
Justice Minister Marco Buschmann praised on Twitter
the dismantling of the “suspected terror cell”, saying it showed that Germany
was able to defend its democracy.
Germany’s domestic intelligence service estimates
that the Reichsbuerger scene consists of around 20,000 people.
Of those, more than 2,000 are deemed potentially violent.
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