German police recently detained a 48-year-old man suspected of carrying out a series of sabotage attacks on the country’s energy infrastructure. According to the German newspaper Tagesspiegel, the suspect was found by chance when two highway patrol officers, who were not part of the large-scale manhunt, noticed flattened grass along a rural road near the Weisweiler power plant outside Aachen. About 200 meters away, they discovered the suspect’s camouflaged tent hidden in bushes, and the man immediately admitted that he was the person police were looking for.
Investigators later found a notebook in a camper van used by the suspect containing handwritten notes on more than 160 targets — some already attacked and others that may have been intended for future sabotage operations.
Herbert Reul, interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia and a member of the Christian Democratic Union, told the state parliament’s interior committee about the discovery.
“We not only detained the suspected perpetrator of the attacks, but may also have prevented further attacks,” he said.
The suspect also told investigators about seven additional locations he had used as hideouts and storage sites. Police have already found evidence at three of them, while the others are still being searched.
