Seven Suspected Members of an Islamic Terrorist Organisation Arrested

Year of issue 2023
Date 06.07.2023

Today (6 July 2023), the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office had agents of the Federal Criminal Police Office, with the participation of the North Rhine-Westphalian State Criminal Police Office, arrest

the Turkmen national Ata A.
the Tajik national Mukhammadshujo A.
the Kyrgyz national Abrorjon K.
the Tajik national Nuriddin K.
the Tajik national Shamshud N.
the Tajik national Said S. and
the Tajik national Raboni Z.

in execution of arrest warrants issued by the Investigating Judge at the Federal Court of Justice. The arrests took place at different locations in the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia. Trusting cooperation with the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution has paved the way for this operation. It was also closely coordinated with investigation authorities in the Netherlands where two more individuals (see press release of the Dutch National Prosecutor’s Office of 6 July 2023 available at:
https://www.prosecutionservice.nl/latest) were apprehended simultaneously.

The persons arrested in Germany are strongly suspected of forming a domestic terrorist organisation and participating as members thereof (section 129a [1] 1. of the German Criminal Code). They are also accused of supporting the foreign terrorist organisation ‘Islamic State’ (IS) (section 129a [1] 1., [5] sentence 1, section 129b [1] sentences 1 and 2 of the German Criminal Code).

In essence, the arrest warrant sets out the following facts:

The seven aforementioned suspects have known each other for some time and share a radical Islamic ideology. Shortly after the war in Ukraine broke out in spring of 2022, they travelled from there to Germany almost at the same time. In late June 2022, they formed a terrorist organisation in Germany with the objective to commit headline-grabbing terrorist attacks in the spirit of IS inside the country. The man arrested in the Netherlands today was also part of the organisation. The organisation was in contact with members of the regional IS affiliate ‘Islamic State Khorasan Province’ (ISKP), who resides abroad. For the purpose of executing their plan, the suspects had already contemplated targets in Germany, scouted potential crime scenes and attempted to procure weapons. Nevertheless, there was no tangible terrorist plot at the time of today’s arrest.

Apart from Abrorjon K., the suspects arrested in Germany were collecting funds for IS since April 2022 and repeatedly transferred the money to the organisation abroad.

The suspects are due to be brought before the Investigating Judge at the Federal Court of Justice today and tomorrow who will be reading out the arrests warrants to them and deciding on the enforcement of pre-trial detention.