BERLIN - German anti-terrorism police on Thursday arrested a 27-year-old man in the western city of Bochum suspected of links to a local al Qaida cell and of planning an attack, the Federal Prosecutor said in a statement.
The man, a German citizen named as "Halil S", is believed to have been recruited by the suspected ring-leader of the cell who was arrested in April, and of having raised money for a planned attack by fraudulent use of the online auction site ebay.A spokesman for the prosecutor's office said there were no signs of specific plans nor of actual targets, and he rejected a report in the online edition of Germany's Focus magazine that the suspect planned to attack a Christmas market.
German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich said people had not been in danger, but that the case showed Germany and Europe remained a focus of Islamist militant plots.
