A second soldier has been arrested for allegedly planning a “false flag” terror attack to be blamed on refugees in Germany amid fears of a wider neo-Nazi network within the army.
The plot was exposed with the arrest of a German lieutenant, Franco A, who was found to be posing as a Syrian refugee in order to carry out a shooting attack targeting left-wing politicians.
The federal prosecutor’s office said the three suspects were suspected of planning to attack senior politicians and public figures “who are committed to an immigration and refugee policy which has failed in the view of the defendants”.
The names of the former German President, Joachim Gauck, and left-wing justice minister Heiko Maas (SPD) were on a list of potential targets, said spokesperson Frauke Köhler.
She told a press conference Franco A planned to frame Islamist militants for the attack, which would have been linked to his fake identity as a Syrian refugee.
“The three suspects wanted to direct suspicion at asylum seekers living in Germany after the attack,” she added.
“The planned attack was intended to be interpreted by the population as a radical Islamist terrorist attack by a recognised refugee.
Franco A had created a fake persona under the name David Benjamin, telling immigration officials he was a Damascus fruit seller from a Christian family with French roots.
No doubts appear to have been raised over the credibility of the 28-year-old’s background, despite him speaking mainly French with a smattering of Arabic from a language course.
The lieutenant registered in Giessen, Hesse, on 30 December 2015 – as Germany was overwhelmed by the arrival of almost a million asylum seekers – then submitted an asylum application at Zirndorf in Bavaria in January last year.
Officials said he obtained a Second World War era Unique Model 17 pistol for the attack, which he hid in a disabled toilet in Vienna International Airport while passing through in January.
Franco A’s double life was only discovered when he was arrested after returning to retrieve the gun in February.
A fingerprint check revealed his fake identity as a Syrian refugee, but when “David Benjamin” failed to answer a court summons in Austria, a wider investigation was triggered and the plot unravelled.
The soldier had not raised alarm over extremism in the army, despite writing a master’s thesis on ”political change and subversion strategy“ at a French university in 2014 that was found to contain far-right thinking.
An assault rifle case carved with a swastika was found in his barracks room, where the letters HH [Heil Hitler] were inscribed on the wall and a Nazi-era pamphlet depicting a Wehrmacht soldier was discovered.
great. just great
The ‘false flag’ terror plot in Germany just took an even more worrying turn
Mooncustafer 