Train Bomber Charged
June 21, 2007
The prosecutor's office in Karlsruhe said the charges against Youssef Mohamad E.H. would be limited to "an unspecified number of counts of attempted murder" and attempting to cause an explosion and would not include membership in a terrorist organization.
Lawyers said there was no charges of forming a terrorist organization because under German law, at least three people are required to constitute such a group.
Both suspects were seen on closed-circuit TV at the Cologne train station carrying booby-trapped suitcases into trains and were caught within weeks. Police said neither of the bombs exploded because of a mistake in their construction.
"A detonation could have led in both cases to a significant blast and additionally a catalyst within the 'bomb trolleys' could have unleashed a fireball," the federal prosecutor's office said in a statement.
Second trial in Lebanon underway
The next move is for the North-Rhine Westphalia state court in Düsseldorf to formally accept the case for trial.
The 22-year-old Lebanese man is the prime suspect in what was an apparent attempt to explode suitcase bombs on two regional trains on July 31, 2006. He is currently being held in a Berlin jail where investigators said he refuses to answer questions.
He and Jihad H., on trial with three other alleged accomplices in Lebanon since April, were filmed at Cologne station with suitcases. In Beirut, Jihad H. has admitted the plot to German and Lebanese police, prosecutors said,
Bomb turned in to lost and found
Had the bombs exploded, they would have created a 30-meter (98-foot) high fireball that would have badly damaged the trains and likely have caused many deaths, German prosecutors said. The timer and detonator are reported to have gone off without detonating the main explosive. One of the bags was later handed in as lost property.
The charges will maintain that the two main suspects, who were living in Germany, decided in April 2006 to harm their host country to protest publication by newspapers of cartoons they believed were insulting to the Prophet Mohammed.
Police, who said they had gathered substantial DNA evidence against both Youssef Mohamad E.H and Jihad H., have investigated two other men but had not found sufficient evidence to charge them.