BioterrorismGerman police find large quantities of castor seeds in bioweapon suspect’s apartment

Published 21 June 2018

German police investigators have found more than 3,000 castor bean seeds in the Cologne apartment of a 29-year old Tunisian, who was arrested last week for making a biological weapon. The quantity of castor seeds was much larger than initially thought. Castor beans are used in making the toxin ricin. The suspect, who is married to a German woman, had been under police surveillance for contacts with Islamist extremists.

German police investigators have found more than 3,000 castor bean seeds in the Cologne apartment of a 29-year old Tunisian, who was arrested last week for making a biological weapon. The quantity of castor seeds was much larger than initially thought.

Castor beans are used in making the toxin ricin.

Sief Allah H. — German privacy laws prohibit revealing his last name until he is officially charged — had manufactured ricin for a terrorist attack, the president of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), Holger Münch, told German broadcaster RBB-Inforadio.

There were very concrete preparations for such an act using what you might call a biological bomb,” Münch said, describing it as an “unprecedented” threat.

German prosecutors say that about 3,150 castor bean seeds and 84.3 milligrams of ricin were found in the suspect’s apartment.

Ricin is 6,000 times more potent than cyanide and is lethal in minute doses if swallowed, inhaled or injected. It has no known antidote.

Münch said that objects that could be used to make a bomb were also found in the searches.

The Telegraph reports that federal prosecutors said the man had been in contact with “persons from the radical Islamist spectrum,” and that they were still probing the content of the communications.

There are as yet no leads indicating that the accused was a member of a terrorist group,” the federal prosecutors’ office in in the southwestern city of Karlsruhe said.

The man, who is married to a German woman, had been under surveillance after he twice tried to travel to Syria last year.

He bought the seeds online, and used instructions posted online by the ISIS to make ricin.

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency chief Hans-Georg Maassen said a phone-in tip helped authorities confirm their suspicions about the Tunisian and foil the extremist’s plan.

In addition to surveillance by the German police, the German authorities were warned about the man by foreign intelligence agencies.

Europol, Europe’s police agency, warned on Wednesday that the risk of terrorist attacks by Islamist militants “remains acute.”

As IS gets weaker, it has been urging its followers to carry out lone actor type attacks in their home countries, rather than guiding them to travel to the so-called caliphate,” Europol said.

Armed jihadis plotted or carried out more attacks in Europe last year than in 2016, with a total of 33 attacks either planned or executed, Europol said in a report.