Man arrested

Ex-prisoner wanted to kill soldiers with a machete

Almost 200 apprehensions were reported last week.(Bild: Christian Schulter)

In Burgenland, he stood trial as a professional smuggler. Now a Syrian refugee (27) has been arrested as a terror suspect in Germany. The "Krone" knows the background.

Illegal refugee transports are once again more frequent on the smuggling routes. The smuggling gangs are not even deterred by heavy storms. Despite storms, constant rain and flooding in half of Europe, more immigrants are currently making their way across the Austro-Hungarian border to Burgenland by stealth than in previous months.

More and more apprehensions
191 apprehensions were reported last week. In the previous two weeks, the number of registrations rose from 137 to 150. "The trend will intensify. The global situation makes a long-term solution difficult, and the migration problem will never be completely under control. We have to keep our feet on the ground," says an official, with a number of reports on transnational actions against people smuggling on the desk in front of him.

Syrian convicted of smuggling
One particularly sensitive case, which is pending in the Central Office for Combating Terrorism at the Public Prosecutor General's Office in Munich, leads all the way to Eisenstadt. In summer 2018, Syrian Mohammad K. was sentenced to 19 months in prison at the regional court for multiple counts of smuggling. After serving time in prison until April 2019, the 27-year-old's handcuffs have now clicked in Germany.

More people are registering at the border.(Bild: Christian Schulter)

Planned attack?
The terror suspect - who is considered a radical Islamist - is accused of planning an attack in Hof, a town of 47,000 inhabitants in Bavaria. Mohammad K. had obtained two machetes in order to kill "as many" Bundeswehr soldiers as possible during a lunch break, investigators confirmed. Concrete information from the accused's entourage led to his arrest.

Mohammad in custody
The highly confidential information was received by the police exactly one week ago, according to an Austrian insider. Mohammad K. was arrested a few hours later and has been in custody since Friday. The investigation is in full swing. They are investigating whether there is a connection with the terrorist attack at a city festival in Solingen.

Three people were killed and eight injured in the knife attack in August. The suspected Syrian (26) is in custody. In the current case, Mohammad K., who arrived in Germany ten years ago, is not considered a "persecuted refugee", but there were no plans to deport him. He is banned from entering Austria.