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Germany Widens Probe Into Bomb Plot
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Interior Ministry officials said in July that they knew of at least 14 German residents who had journeyed to Pakistan to attend training camps.
"That these cases are becoming more frequent needs to alarm us," Hanning said at the time. "We need to do everything we can to find out who has gone to Pakistan and is being trained there."
Additional details surfaced Thursday about the three defendants in custody, although their backgrounds and motives remained sketchy.
Police identified the ringleader as Fritz Martin Gelowicz, 28, a native of Munich who converted to Islam several years ago. Investigators said he was active in radical Islamic circles in Ulm, a city in Baden-Wuerttemburg that is home to many Islamic converts, and had recently attended a vocational college there.
The two other suspects accused of plotting against U.S. targets lived in other parts of Germany, and it was unclear how they had come into contact with Gelowicz.
A Turkish national, identified by prosecutors as Adem Y., 28, lived in the central state of Hesse. The other defendant, Daniel Martin S., 21, lived next to a mosque near the city of Saarbruecken, close to the French border. Neighbors said he was a recent convert to Islam.
Another German citizen from Ulm, identified by authorities as Tolga D., 29, was arrested in Pakistan in June. Pakistani security officials said he had sought to attend a militant camp and tried to recruit other Germans for the same purpose.
He was deported to Germany last month and questioned by authorities but was later released. At least five other German residents have been arrested in Pakistan in recent months on suspicion of attending camps or acting as couriers for radical groups. Most have returned to Germany since then and remain under surveillance; prosecutors say they don't have enough evidence to pursue charges.
On Tuesday, police also raided the Islamic Information Center, a cultural center in Ulm, one of 40 properties searched across the country as part of the investigation, according to the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.
Special correspondents Shannon Smiley in Berlin and Imtiaz Ali in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
