Confusion surrounds the arrest in Germany of a 17-year-old man alleged to have been planning a suicide attack in Berlin.
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Germany’s interior ministry says the suspect is from Syrian but local arresting police in the Uckermark region, north-east of the capital say they’ve not yet found evidence he was plotting to carry out an atrocity.
Brandenburg Police spokesman Torsten Herbst: “It is not determined yet where the man originates from, he could be Syrian, but he also could come from Maghreb Africa.
From what we know now he apparently illegally came to Germany in autumn 2015, since autumn 2016 he has made Uckermark his home.”
Memories are still fresh in Germany of the Berlin Christmas market attack last December in which 12 people were killed by failed asylum seeker Anis Amri who had pledged allegiance to the self-styled Islamic
State.