Syrian Asylum Seeker, 24, Was Arrested in Germany Accused of Plotting to Blow up a Football Stadium
Allan Hall, Daily Mail, August 11, 2016
With his arm around his teenage fiancee, this is the Syrian asylum seeker pictured days before his arrest accused of plotting to blow up a football stadium full of fans in Germany.
Khaled H was arrested last Friday when heavily armed SEK police commandos stormed the apartment of his 15-year-old fiancee’s parents in the the town of Mutterstadt.
It is believed the 24-year-old left Syria last April and claimed asylum in Germany having travelled through Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia and Austria.
Since the spring of this year he has been living with 700 other asylum seekers in refugee accommodation in Dinslaken in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Now he has been pictured with his arm around his teenage fiancee in a photo German newspaper Bild claimed was taken in the days before his arrest for ‘the preparation for a serious crime against the state.’
On Wednesday security officials also arrested one of his friends thought to be involved in his plot for a ‘spectacular’ atrocity in Germany.
Khaled H. has not spoken a word to investigators since his arrest, nor have there been any more details about the planned attack,
However, there has been media speculation he might have been targeting the first game of the season on August 26 between champions Bayern Munich and Werder Bremen.
The largest stadium in the country is Borussia Dortmund’s Westfalenstadion, which can hold more than 80,000 fans. It is not known which stadiums the terror group was allegedly targeting.
On his arrival in Germany he claimed to be from Damascus and an opponent of the Syrian government regime.
But he was, according to investigators, a sleeper for ISIS, sent to Europe amid the tidal wave of refugees to cause carnage in the land where he was to claim sanctuary.
His fiancee Aylin told Bild: ‘Officers blindfolded him and led him to the car. If he did something wrong he will get his just punishment.’
However, she still believes in his innocence.
On his mobile phone police found a picture of him posing with an AK 47 rifle in Syria. Other photos on his phone and computer showed battle scenes with ISIS fighters.
Harry Sarfo, a German currently serving three years in jail in Bremen for being an ISIS member, has told authorities that the Islamic State group is desperate for foreign fighters from Britain and Germany to return to their respective homelands to pull off mass killings like the Paris attacks of November last year in which 130 people died.