German Police Nab Man Before Leaving for Iraq to Join ISIS

Police walks in the German town of Wuerzburg, Germany, June 25, 2021, during a "major operation" in which police arrested a suspect after local media had earlier reported multiple stabbings. REUTERS/Heiko Becker
Police walks in the German town of Wuerzburg, Germany, June 25, 2021, during a "major operation" in which police arrested a suspect after local media had earlier reported multiple stabbings. REUTERS/Heiko Becker
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German Police Nab Man Before Leaving for Iraq to Join ISIS

Police walks in the German town of Wuerzburg, Germany, June 25, 2021, during a "major operation" in which police arrested a suspect after local media had earlier reported multiple stabbings. REUTERS/Heiko Becker
Police walks in the German town of Wuerzburg, Germany, June 25, 2021, during a "major operation" in which police arrested a suspect after local media had earlier reported multiple stabbings. REUTERS/Heiko Becker

An 18-year-old man suspected of having planned an extremist attack in Frankfurt has been arrested near Germany's border with Austria as he attempted to leave the country for Iraq and join ISIS, German investigators said Thursday.

The man, a German citizen with Moroccan roots who grew up in Germany, was arrested on Wednesday at a highway rest area near Passau, Frankfurt prosecutors and Hesse state criminal police said in a statement.

The arrest stemmed from an investigation that started last summer, The Associated Press reported. The man, whose name wasn't released, is accused of having planned a shooting attack in Frankfurt, of having researched how to build explosive devices online, and of procuring a stabbing weapon that he kept in his parents' garage.

German authorities were alerted by a foreign intelligence service, which Thursday's statement didn't identify. When the suspect's home was searched in August, investigators found depictions of ISIS’ flag and ideologically loaded pictures of fighting and executions, but couldn't immediately substantiate suspicions that he was planning an attack.

Further investigations suggested that he had put off his plans for an attack in Frankfurt for fear of being discovered and couldn't find enough money to get a firearm, authorities said. Instead, he allegedly planned to leave Germany on Wednesday to travel overland to Iraq, where he hoped to join ISIS.

The suspect was arrested before he could leave the country and his home was searched again.



ICC Opens Inquiry into Hungary for Failing to Arrest Netanyahu

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)
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ICC Opens Inquiry into Hungary for Failing to Arrest Netanyahu

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)

Judges at the International Criminal Court want Hungary to explain why it failed to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visited Budapest earlier this month.

In a filing released late Wednesday, The Hague-based court initiated non-compliance proceedings against Hungary after the country gave Netanyahu a red carpet welcome despite an ICC arrest warrant for crimes against humanity in connection with the war in Gaza.

During the visit, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced his country would quit the court, claiming on state radio that the ICC was “no longer an impartial court, not a court of law, but a political court.”

The Hungarian leader, regarded by critics as an autocrat and the EU’s most intransigent spoiler in the bloc’s decision-making, defended his decision to not arrest Netanyahu.

“We signed an international treaty, but we never took all the steps that would otherwise have made it enforceable in Hungary,” Orbán said at the time, referring to the fact that Hungary’s parliament never promulgated the court’s statute into Hungarian law.

Judges at the ICC have previously dismissed similar arguments.

The ICC and other international organizations have criticized Hungary’s defiance of the warrant against Netanyahu. Days before his arrival, the president of the court’s oversight body wrote to the government in Hungary reminding it of its “specific obligation to comply with requests from the court for arrest and surrender.”

A spokesperson for the ICC declined to comment on the non-compliance proceedings.

Hungary’s decision to leave the ICC, a process that will take at least a year to complete, will make it the sole non-signatory within the 27-member European Union. With 125 current signatory countries, only the Philippines and Burundi have ever withdrawn from the court as Hungary intends.

Hungary has until May 23 to submit evidence in its defense.