In Plot Suspect, Germany Sees Familiar Face
By NICHOLAS KULISH and SOUAD MEKHENNET
New York Times
ULM, Germany, Sept. 6 — Legally, his name is as German as they come: Fritz. To his new confidants in the radical Islamic scene and alleged terrorist co-conspirators, he was Abdullah.
Fritz Gelowicz, barely 28 years old, sits in police custody, charged with leading a terrorist plot that, had it succeeded, could have surpassed the London and Madrid bombings in their murderous toll. That he is a German native, born in Munich, and a youthful convert to Islam has only made it harder for his countrymen to grasp the accusation, although his guilt is far from established.
The picture sketched by legal documents and interviews with intelligence and law enforcement officials is nonetheless of a young man troubled by problems in his parents’ marriage, quickly embraced by forces that would twist him to their agenda. They made him not only a willing soldier but a capable leader.
“A leading mind, the one with initiative, the coordinator,” said August Hanning, the state secretary at the German Interior Ministry. “He possessed enormous criminal energy. Very cold-blooded and full of hatred.”
That hatred, intelligence officials here say, led him on a journey through Saudi Arabia and Syria, and to a terrorist training camp in Pakistan. Ultimately, it took him to a vacation home back in Germany with chemicals to make explosives and military-grade detonators. There, the investigators who had closely tracked his movements say, the authorities finally brought Mr. Gelowicz and two suspects said to be his associates, Daniel Martin Schneider and Adem Yilmaz, to ground.
That Mr. Gelowicz found the Islamic scene in Ulm, on the other hand, may have been the least shocking part of the unfolding tale. This unassuming city on the Danube River, birthplace of Einstein, has for years had a reputation within Germany as the center of a fiery Islamic movement.
(Continued here.)
New York Times
ULM, Germany, Sept. 6 — Legally, his name is as German as they come: Fritz. To his new confidants in the radical Islamic scene and alleged terrorist co-conspirators, he was Abdullah.
Fritz Gelowicz, barely 28 years old, sits in police custody, charged with leading a terrorist plot that, had it succeeded, could have surpassed the London and Madrid bombings in their murderous toll. That he is a German native, born in Munich, and a youthful convert to Islam has only made it harder for his countrymen to grasp the accusation, although his guilt is far from established.
The picture sketched by legal documents and interviews with intelligence and law enforcement officials is nonetheless of a young man troubled by problems in his parents’ marriage, quickly embraced by forces that would twist him to their agenda. They made him not only a willing soldier but a capable leader.
“A leading mind, the one with initiative, the coordinator,” said August Hanning, the state secretary at the German Interior Ministry. “He possessed enormous criminal energy. Very cold-blooded and full of hatred.”
That hatred, intelligence officials here say, led him on a journey through Saudi Arabia and Syria, and to a terrorist training camp in Pakistan. Ultimately, it took him to a vacation home back in Germany with chemicals to make explosives and military-grade detonators. There, the investigators who had closely tracked his movements say, the authorities finally brought Mr. Gelowicz and two suspects said to be his associates, Daniel Martin Schneider and Adem Yilmaz, to ground.
That Mr. Gelowicz found the Islamic scene in Ulm, on the other hand, may have been the least shocking part of the unfolding tale. This unassuming city on the Danube River, birthplace of Einstein, has for years had a reputation within Germany as the center of a fiery Islamic movement.
(Continued here.)
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