In the raid against the Reich Citizens' Scene to thwart a coup d'etat, police officers in North Rhine-Westphalia also became active in their own ranks. The searches are also aimed at a NRW police officer.
Düsseldorf (dpa / lnw) - In the nationwide raid to thwart a coup d'état, according to dpa information, a North Rhine-Westphalian policewoman is also in the investigators' sights. She was also searched on Wednesday, as the German Press Agency learned. A spokesman for the NRW Ministry of the Interior did not want to comment.
"Of the more than 130 search objects in Germany, three are in North Rhine-Westphalia," it said in a written statement. So far there have been no arrest warrants against people in North Rhine-Westphalia. According to the spokesman, the NRW searches took place in Krefeld, in the Minden-Lübbecke district and at another unnamed third location.
According to the federal prosecutor's office, a group of suspects from the Reich citizen scene were planning a coup. The authorities arrested 25 suspects on Wednesday morning. Nationwide, 3,000 police officers are said to have been deployed.
"Reich citizens are a dangerous mixture of right-wing extremists, supporters of conspiracy myths and recalcitrant state deniers, we see that once again today," said NRW Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) on request. "A gang of terrorists was at work here. They use every means to destroy our existing free social order."
"I am particularly shocked that the accused also include people who, as members of the military and security authorities, have access to weapons." The arrests and searches have also shown: "The security authorities are vigilant and assertive. The good cooperation between the federal and state governments today led to a dangerous terrorist cell being stopped."
"The development shows what fake news and conspiracy theories can lead to," said NRW state parliament president André Kuper (CDU) of the "Rheinische Post". "The major raid on the Reich citizen scene shows that the democratic constitutional state works and is vigilant. But at the same time it becomes clear that democracy is attacked when Reich citizens aim to overcome the existing state order in Germany."
A terrorist group is said to have formed in the Reich citizen scene, which is said to have prepared the overthrow of the political system in Germany. "The investigations allow us to look into the abyss of a terrorist threat from the Reich citizen milieu," said Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD). Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann described the nationwide raid as an "anti-terrorist operation".
"Reich citizens" are people who do not recognize the Federal Republic and its democratic structures. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution assigns around 21,000 supporters to the scene nationwide.
