It was just some downtrodden grass on a dirt road. But that was the decisive lead for two young police officers that led to the arrest on Tuesday of the 48-year-old suspected energy attacker, who was being searched for throughout Europe.
Although they were not involved in the large-scale manhunt, the two highway police officers found the suspect's hiding place and arrested him. One of the two officers even turned on his body camera. The German Press Agency was able to view the recordings.
They show how the two young officers follow the trail in the grass and come across a man in the bushes around 200 meters from the path. A police officer draws his pistol and orders the man to lie on the ground. He offers no resistance and follows all instructions. Officials later reported that he immediately admitted that he was the person he was looking for. Then the handcuffs click.
For days, the attacks on the power grid in North Rhine-Westphalia, Brandenburg and Saxony made headlines in the media and led to a large-scale police operation. The search ended in a bush about 800 meters next to the Weisweiler power plant near Aachen (North Rhine-Westphalia).
The bodycam recording pans to the side. You can see a tent that the 48-year-old has set up camouflaged in the bushes. The police had flown over the area with helicopters and drones - but due to the good camouflage, the tent could not be seen from the air, explains operations manager Frank Wißbaum when asked by the German Press Agency.
Although the 48-year-old had changed his appearance significantly, the police experts were quickly certain that he was actually the suspect who had been wanted for days.
“The two young colleagues did really well in terms of crime,” praises Wißbaum. Up to 1,700 emergency services were deployed for several days to search for the 48-year-old.
Wißbaum controlled the large-scale operation from Cologne police headquarters. He and his colleagues in the command staff repeatedly thought about what kind of perpetrator they were dealing with and how they could track him down.
A lot of things didn't add up, the operations manager says in retrospect: On the one hand, there were the crime scenes where the 48-year-old is said to have used self-made rockets to shoot thin wires over high-voltage lines in order to short-circuit them: On the one hand, they were in Brandenburg and Saxony and, on the other hand, in the Rhenish lignite mining area. There are more than 700 kilometers of route in between. This is rather untypical for a lone perpetrator.
In addition, there were letters of confession that the suspected perpetrator signed with his real name and sent to several media outlets. "Such an approach is very rare. It was clear to us: the perpetrator wanted to be recognized and found," says Wißbaum. “But why?”
The police officers developed perpetrator profiles and put forward various hypotheses about what the 48-year-old might plan to do next. One of these theories was that the man could join the climate protection scene in the Hambach Forest. In the forest that was occupied years ago by climate activists in the fight against brown coal-fired power generation, some people still live in tree houses today.
It was fitting that on Friday the officers found the conspicuous camping truck nearby that the 48-year-old had previously been driving. "He didn't hide the car, he literally draped it there in the parking lot. That also showed us: He wants to draw attention to himself," reports Wißbaum.
That was the reason why several hundred people combed the Hambach Forest last weekend. But they didn't find the 48-year-old there.
The next concrete indication of the person being sought came last Monday, when new launchers appeared at the Weisweiler power plant near Aachen - along with a third letter of confession. In it, the 48-year-old referred to several current developments, media reports and the investigations. "It was clear: He read everything. We were basically followed by him every step of the way."
Because the officials assumed that the 48-year-old was no longer using a motor, the search focused on the area around the Weisweiler power plant from Monday onwards. On Monday evening around 9 p.m., while the police operation was ongoing, another rocket suddenly ignited. But it didn't reach the high-voltage line it was aimed at and didn't cause any damage, says Wißbaum.
The operation was nerve-wracking for the police, emphasizes Cologne Police Chief Johannes Hermanns. In the cathedral city there is currently one major operation following the next. “The people couldn’t get out of their boots until the next mission came along.”
The relief is also so great because the investigators had to assume that there would be further attacks at any time: In the suspected saboteur's mobile home, they discovered a notebook with handwritten notes on more than 160 previous and possible further sabotage targets. In North Rhine-Westphalia, more than 40 rocket launchers have already been identified that were intended to trigger short circuits.
The 48-year-old revealed seven other places to the judge that he had used as a camp, reports North Rhine-Westphalia Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) to the state parliament. The police have already found them in three of these places. The suspect led the officers to the various locations in a patrol car.
The Federal Prosecutor's Office has now taken over the investigation against the suspect. Because of its special importance, the Karlsruhe authorities took over the case, said a spokeswoman.
