A 32-year-old Iranian man has been detained in Germany on suspicion of planning an attack with deadly chemicals, officials said.
The man and another person were detained overnight in the town of Castrop-Rauxel, north-west of Dortmund, police and prosecutors said.
In a joint statement, they said the man is suspected to have planned a serious attack motivated by Islamic extremism, for which he had allegedly sought to obtain the potent toxins cyanide and ricin.
Specialists wearing anti-contamination suits were seen carrying evidence out of the man’s home.
A spokesman for Duesseldorf prosecutors later said an initial search of the premises turned up no toxic substances, German news agency dpa reported.
It was not immediately clear how advanced the plans for an attack were and whether the suspect had picked a specific target.
Dpa quoted the top security official for North Rhine-Westphalia state, Herbert Reul, as saying authorities got “a serious tip that led police to intervene the same night”.
Tabloid newspaper Bild said the tip came from an allied intelligence agency.
Duesseldorf prosecutors confirmed the information came from authorities in the United States but declined to elaborate.
Dpa cited an unidentified German security official as saying there was no indication the suspect acted on behalf of the Iranian state, but rather he allegedly supported a Sunni extremist group.
Sunnis are a religious minority in Iran.
Germany’s top security official thanked police and specialists from the country’s disease control agency who had taken part in the raid.
“Our security services take any information about Islamist terror threats very seriously, and act,” interior minister Nancy Faser said in a statement, adding that 21 Islamist attacks have been prevented in Germany since the start of the century.
Ms Faeser noted the importance of international co-operation in fighting extremist threats and said further investigations by Duesseldorf prosecutors will show if the suspicions that triggered the police operation were warranted.
Five years ago, German police arrested a Tunisian man and his wife on suspicion of planning to carry out a ricin attack in the name of the so-called Islamic State group.
They were later found guilty and sentenced to 10 and eight years’ imprisonment respectively.
Even small amounts of ricin can kill an adult if eaten, injected or inhaled.
