One Somali terror suspect remains in custody, 11 now freed (update)

Tuesday 28 December 2010

Five of the six Somali nationals who remained in custody on suspicion of plotting a terrorist attack in the Netherlands were released on Tuesday.

Four were set free by the public prosecution department and one on the order of a judge.

One remains in custody and can be held for a further three days. Two of the five released on Tuesday remain under investigation, the Telegraaf said.

In total,12 men were arrested by police in a phone shop and four homes in Rotterdam and two motel rooms in Brabant on Friday. No weapons or explosives were found during the raids.

The men are aged between 19 and 48. Six are Rotterdam residents, five have ‘no fixed address’ and one came from Denmark. Five were released at the weekend and one on Monday and are no longer considered suspects.

Helicopter
The Telegraaf reported earlier on Tuesday the AIVD security service had ‘very concrete’ information that the men were planning to shoot down an Apache helicopter from the Gilze-Rijen airbase.

‘Crudely put, the only thing still missing was the equipment to bring one down,’ a ‘reliable security service source’ told the paper. In total, 85 helicopters are based at Gilze-Rijen, many of which have seen active service in Afghanistan.

Questioning

Lawyer Michael Ruperti, who represents several of the men, told the Volkskrant his clients had not been questioned about a specific target.

Rather, they were shown photographs of other people and asked about their foreign trips, Ruperti said.

Leiden University professor Edwin Bakker, who specialises in counter-terrorism, told the Telegraaf he suspected the tip had reached the AIVD from abroad.

'Twelve is a lot of people to arrest. Terrorist cells don't work like that,' Bakker told the paper. The person still being held in custody may be related to someone involved in a foreign terrorist network 'but the chance that he is directly involved is virtually zero,' Bakker said.

© DutchNews.nl

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