Overview
- The arrest followed a warrant from the Dresden Higher Regional Court, and the suspect is to be brought before an investigating judge there.
- Investigators searched the suspect’s residence in Cologne, with officers from Hamburg, Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia supporting the operation.
- Related searches in Bautzen targeted two additional suspects aged 46 and 53, yielding phones, storage media, documents and large amounts of cash.
- Authorities accuse the man of membership in a terrorist organization abroad and of running annual fundraising drives, propaganda events and meetings while supervising subordinate cadres.
- Investigators say he served as Gebietsleiter for Saxony from 2015 to 2018 and later oversaw areas in Saarland, Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia, Baden-Württemberg and most recently Hamburg; the PKK remains banned in Germany despite its announced dissolution in May.