Police interrupt planning to attack Berlin race, 6 detained

BERLIN — Six people were detained in connection with what police and prosecutors allege was a plan to carry out an attack on Berlin’s half-marathon Sunday, German authorities said. A police spokesperson later said that no athletes or spectators had been in danger.

“There were isolated indications that those arrested, aged between 18 and 21 years, were participating in the preparation of a crime in connection with this event,” prosecutors and police wrote in a joint statement.

Berlin police tweeted that six people were detained in co-operation with the city’s prosecutor’s office.

The German daily Die Welt first reported that police foiled a plot to attack race spectators and participants with knives.

The main suspect allegedly knew Anis Amri, a Tunisian who killed 12 people and injured dozens more when he drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin in December 2016, Die Welt reported.

Police spokesperson Thomas Neuendorf said the evidence of a viable and imminent attack was not yet confirmed.

“But because of the high threat level we immediately started with our police searches and arrests,” Neuendorf said. “But at the moment there are no really concrete indications that an attack on the Berlin half-marathon was foreseen.”

One of the apartments raided Sunday was also searched after the Christmas market attack.