Germany’s security chief demands answers after terror suspect’s jail death

GERMANY - German officials have demanded answers after a 22-year-old Syrian man suspected of planning an Islamic extremist bombing attack was able to take his own life in his jail cell despite indications he might be a suicide risk.

Germany’s top security official, the interior minister, Thomas de Maiziere, said Jaber Albakr’s death would make the investigation into whether he had accomplices in the thwarted plot far more difficult. “What happened last night demands a very quick and comprehensive explanation,” he said on ZDF public television. Albakr’s lawyer, Alexander Huebner, told Focus magazine that the Leipzig prison was aware his client was a suicide risk. “I’m unbelievably shocked and absolutely speechless that something like this could have happened,” he said. Huebner told Bild newspaper his client had apparently made an earlier attempt to kill himself in jail. Wolfgang Bosbach, a senior member of chancellor Angela Merkel’s party and a security expert, told n-tv that, given his behaviour, Albakr should have been under constant observation. “The suicide danger was known. It was not just an assumption,” Bosbach said. Albakr killed himself in his cell on Wednesday evening. Saxony state authorities were already facing criticism after Albakr eluded police as they prepared to raid an apartment where he had been staying in the city of Chemnitz on Saturday. Inside the apartment police found highly volatile explosives and a homemade bomb vest. Albakr, who had been granted asylum after coming to Germany last year, was arrested on Monday in Leipzig after three fellow Syrians tied him up and alerted police. He had been granted asylum after coming to Germany last year, and had been under surveillance by German domestic intelligence since last month. Earlier on Wednesday, De Maiziere said Albakr had undergone a security check last year that did not turn up anything suspicious. “There was a check against security authorities’ data in 2015, but without any hits,” he said. “It’s not clear when he was radicalised.” German authorities have said they believe Albakr had links to the Islamic State militant group and was thought to be planning to attack a Berlin airport, possibly as soon as this week. (Theguardian.com)