Power Grid Sabotage: “He Wanted to Keep Going”

According to North Rhine-Westphalia’s Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU), the arrested suspected power grid saboteur had intended to continue his attacks. “He was still out there and wanted to keep going. That’s over now,” Reul said in Duisburg. “At the moment, everything points to this being the work of a lone perpetrator acting on his own.”

Suggestions that the 48-year-old might have mental health issues or could have been paid are “just reading tea leaves.” However, Reul said he did not yet know what the suspect had said during questioning. His arrest was thanks to an observant policewoman who found the man’s behavior suspicious.

Following a series of sabotage attacks on the power grid in several federal states, police arrested the wanted suspect near Weisweiler, close to Aachen. He caught the police’s attention during a large-scale operation near the Weisweiler power plant near Aachen.

Investigators believe he attempted to sabotage power lines near coal-fired power plants in several locations in North Rhine-Westphalia, Brandenburg, and Saxony—and in some cases, he succeeded.

According to police, the man was carrying explosives at the time of his arrest. In addition, officers found a tent in the underbrush near the Weisweiler power plant that was equipped with additional explosive charges. The man did not resist arrest.