Police in the state of Brandenburg, which surrounds the capital Berlin, have detained a teenager from the Teltow-Fleming district for possible planning an attack, a law enforcement spokesman said, quoted by DPA and BTA.
As reported, investigators have come across a trail of plans for an alleged politically motivated attack during the Christmas period, and on Tuesday, Christmas Eve, information in this direction has intensified.
For now, police officers are not revealing more details about the intentions of the attack.
As reported, on Wednesday, on Christmas Day, a specialized police team searched the suspect's home. The young man was subsequently detained.
The district court in Potsdam, the capital of the state of Brandenburg and a city adjacent to Berlin, later confirmed the news of the detention.
Meanwhile, it was reported that the medical license of the suspect in the attack on the Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg is expected to be revoked, DPA reported, citing the regional administration of the state of Saxony-Anhalt.
Local authorities announced that they had started a procedure to revoke the suspected attacker's medical license, and initially his license to practice will be suspended.
“A prerequisite for this is a notification from the prosecutor confirming that a preliminary investigation has been opened,“ the authorities said in a statement, adding that this notification had already been officially requested.
The suspension of the license was described as a temporary measure that prevents a doctor from practicing while a criminal investigation is ongoing, especially in urgent or unclear cases.
Last Friday evening, the suspect - a doctor of Saudi origin who arrived in Germany in 2006 - drove a large car into a crowd of visitors to a Christmas market. Five people died and 265 were injured.
The investigation into the motives for the attack is ongoing.
In the weeks before the attack, the suspect often demonstrated volatile and radical behavior on social networks, DPA notes.
The 50-year-old man said he was a supporter of the owner of the social network “Ex“ Elon Musk and the far-right German party “Alternative for Germany“, which he said had the same goals as him.
Over the past 20 years, the administration of the state of Saxony-Anhalt has requested and implemented the revocation of the medical licenses of a total of 17 doctors.