Deployment near Hamburg
Attack planned on Christmas market – 17-year-old in custody
Updated 11/11/2024 – 7:38 p.mReading time: 2 min.
A police officer walks through a Christmas market (symbolic image): An attack was prevented in Elmshorn. (Source: Oelbermann / deutzmann.net)
Investigators have arrested a young person in Elmshorn. He is said to have planned an attack. Did investigators prevent something bad from happening?
Investigators have arrested a 17-year-old in Elmshorn, Schleswig-Holstein, for a planned attack. An arrest warrant was issued against the suspect on November 7th for conspiring to commit a crime, as Flensburg public prosecutor Bernd Winterfeldt said. The background is “an attack scenario, but not clearly defined”. “Bild” had previously reported that the target of the attack was a Christmas market.
There was praise from Schleswig-Holstein’s Interior Minister Sabine Sütterlin-Waack. “The security authorities did a good job and apparently prevented a possible attack,” said the CDU politician. “I would like to thank all colleagues involved for this. We must always be vigilant.”
The responsible authorities at the state and federal level have been warning for some time that attack plans could also be implemented in Schleswig-Holstein. This makes it all the more important that there is an “intensive, confidential and cross-border exchange”.
The fact that the teenager is said to have planned an attack with a truck is reminiscent of the attack on December 19, 2016 on Breitscheidplatz in Berlin. At that time, an Islamist terrorist hijacked a truck and drove into a Christmas market at the Memorial Church.
A total of 13 people died as a result of the crime, one of them as a result years later. More than 70 people were injured, some of them seriously. The assassin fled to Italy, where he was shot dead by the police.
