Overview
- Police arrested a 48‑year‑old suspect after a large manhunt that deployed about 1,700 officers, helicopters and drones, and bodycam footage shows he was found hiding in a well‑camouflaged tent and taken into custody without resistance.
- Investigators recovered a notebook in the suspect’s motorhome that names more than 160 past or potential sabotage sites, and the man told a judge of seven cache locations that police are now checking.
- Authorities have seized over 40 improvised rocket‑launch devices and substances for explosives across Nordrhein‑Westfalen, Brandenburg and Saxony, and say the attacker used homemade rockets to propel thin wires over high‑voltage lines to short them.
- The Federal Prosecutor’s Office is evaluating whether to assume the case as police continue to map caches and follow leads, and officials say there is so far no evidence of foreign‑state direction or confirmed accomplices.
- Separately, the AfD’s landslide in Saxony‑Anhalt has intensified pressure on Chancellor Friedrich Merz, sparked public intra‑CDU fights and produced polling losses that threaten further defeats for the governing parties in state votes next week.