Police have arrested 25 suspected members or supporters of a “domestic terrorist organization” aiming to topple the German state. Justice Minister Marco Buschmann said the network was part of the “Reichsbürger scene,” Deutsche Welle reports.
In a nationwide raid, 25 suspected members and supporters of a terrorist organization were arrested early Wednesday.
Officials said the network, part of a wider right-wing movement, was already well established with a concrete plan to overthrow the German state by force and install a new government.
The raids were announced by Germany’s federal prosecution agency and German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann. Buschmann said the investigations were directed against a suspected terrorist network with known ties to the Reichsbürger movement. He said that the raids had taken place on individuals suspected of planning an armed attack on state institutions.
“Since this morning a large anti-terror operation is taking place. The Federal Public Prosecutor General is investigating a suspected terror network from the Reichsbürger scene,” Buschmann wrote. “The suspicion exists that an armed attack on constitutional organs was planned.”
The search operation is reported to have covered 130 properties belonging to 52 suspects in 11 German states.
According to prosecution officials, the arrested suspects “belong to a terrorist organization founded by the end of November 2021 at the latest, which has set itself the goal of overcoming the existing state order in Germany and replacing it with its own form of state, which has already been worked out in outline.”
Of the 25 men and women arrested, 24 were from Germany and one suspected supporter is from Russia. One arrest took place in Austria and one in Italy. There are 27 other suspects, the federal prosecutor’s office said.
