Renewed explosions in Frankfurt – 17-year-old suspect arrested

In Frankfurt, explosive devices detonated at night on Berger Straße and Zeil. The police arrested a 17-year-old suspect. The authorities attribute the acts to the "Violence-as-a-Service"phenomenon. Hesse's Minister of the Interior sees the increase in cases as "a new dimension".

Around 4.20 am on Thursday morning, there were two explosions in Frankfurt, according to the police. According to initial findings, explosives exploded in front of an acai café on Berger Straße in the Nordend district between Herderstraße and Baumweg, as well as in front of a hookah bar on Zeil near the Bürgeramt. Both buildings were badly damaged, several panes broke. "It was like in the war" The detonation in the café "Rio" was so powerful that an opposite soup bar, an adjacent savings bank and at least one parked car were also damaged on Berger Straße.

Numerous people were ripped from their sleep by the detonation noise. “The bang was extremely loud. It was like war,” one resident reported. “I've never heard anything like it.

It went through the whole body, ”she added. She does not even live right next to the crime scene, but around the corner in a side street. A second resident said that immediately after the explosion, she and her boyfriend saw a man in a hoodie hiding in the hedge of a courtyard. Your friend called the police.

The second explosive device detonated shortly after the first explosion just a few hundred meters away in front of the hookah bar "Truth" in the eastern area of Zeil in the city center. No one was injured in either case. A video from a surveillance camera shows a man and the moment of the blast. Shortly before the detonation, the black-clad man sprayed a red lettering with the word "drug thief" on the sidewalk.

Suspect arrested As part of the initiated search, the police arrested a 17-year-old Dutch suspect near the crime scene on Berger Straße. He is to be presented to a magistrate on Friday, as the public prosecutor's office announced. The Frankfurt Criminal Police has started the investigation, with the support of the Hessian State Criminal Police Office. In addition to the two crimes of Thursday, the investigators also include three similar cases in recent days in Frankfurt-Bockenheim, Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen and Offenbach.

After the explosion in Sachsenhausen, a 15-year-old suspect was arrested and placed in pre-trial detention. Prosecutor's Office assumes "Violence as a Service" "So much can be said: These acts can clearly be attributed to the phenomenon of"Violence as a Service"," said Frankfurt's Chief Prosecutor Dominik Mies on Thursday. "Here, too, Dutch youths were recruited and driven to Germany in cars to carry out these explosive attacks," says Mies. Whether there are further connections between the total of five offences is a focus of the investigation, it was said.

To potential perpetrators, the public prosecutor's office addressed the "clear announcement that it would be better not to commit such acts". They will intervene decisively and investigate at full speed, according to Chief Prosecutor Mies. Poseck: "Deeds are not directed against innocent citizens" Hesse's Interior Minister Roman Poseck (CDU) spoke in the hessenschau of "a new dimension within organized crime", which is reflected in the current acts. The increase in crimes not only affects Hesse, but also other federal states such as North Rhine-Westphalia.

"These acts are not directed against innocent citizens, usually not against life and limb, but are intended to provoke fear and terror within organized crime," says Poseck. Therefore, a difficulty in the investigation is "that the victims are not always cooperative, because they sometimes belong to criminal milieus". Now everything is being done to "break through these series" and to hold the "backers" accountable in cooperation with the Dutch authorities. Similar cases as early as the beginning of the year Prior to the current series of explosions, there were several similar cases in the Rhine-Main region as early as last autumn.

In March, a 20-year-old Dutchman was arrested, who is said to have been involved in several explosions.