Lebanon charged five suspects with attempted murder and arson in connection with a plot to bomb German trains in late July. Three of them, all Lebanese, were arrested in Lebanon while one Lebanese and one Syrian are being detained in Germany. They face up to 25 years in prison if convicted.German federal police said Saturday that the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in Western and some Arab media had been the "detonator" which pushed the alleged terrorists to organize a plot to bomb German trains on July 31. The plan failed when bombs hidden on two regional trains did not explode due to faulty detonators.
One of the suspects, Yusef Mohammed al-Hajj Dib, who was arrested in Germany on August 16, "interpreted (the caricatures) as an affront to Islam by the Western world," federal police chief Jorg Ziercke told the German Focus Online magazine in an interview to be published Monday.
He and another suspect, Jihad Hamad, who was arrested on August 24 in Lebanon, are the two main suspects. Ziercke said they were influenced by the late Al-Qaeda in Iraq chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
According to the German newspaper Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, the investigation found that the suspected terrorists initially wanted to strike during the World Cup football chamionship from June 9 to July 9. They changed their minds due to the risks and repercussions their act could have triggered, according to the newspaper.
Lebanon's general prosecutor Said Mirza has opposed transferring Lebanese suspects to Germany. They are "Lebanese citizens, their trial needs to take place here and they must serve here any sentence they may be given," he said.