‘Terror-financing’ raids in Germany target ‘Chechens’

Erfurt / AFP

German police on Tuesday raided apartments across five states in a probe against 14 Chechen asylum seekers over suspected financing of terrorist groups and links to the IS organisation. The raids were part of a running investigation which began last year into a 28-year-old Russian of Chechen origin who is suspected of “preparing an act of violence against the state”. The suspect was believed to have been planning to join IS extremists in their battle in Syria.
Police said no arrests were made on Tuesday but that 10 other men and three women were now under suspicion over their role in “terror financing”. Tuesday’s raids targeted 12 apartments as well as a shelter for asylum seekers in the eastern states of Thueringen and Saxony, as well as Hamburg in the north, North Rhine-Westphalia in the west and Bavaria in the south. Police said there was “no concrete danger of an attack”.