The series of attacks on the energy supply in Germany continues. Now a letter of confession may provide investigators with new clues. Officials are investigating another substation.
Dormagen. After the discovery of a suspicious launching device at a substation in North Rhine-Westphalia, the police are assuming another attempt to sabotage the energy supply. It was said that there was no damage to the critical infrastructure at the facility in Dormagen between Düsseldorf and Cologne.
This continues the series of sabotage attempts on the energy grid. Most recently, unknown people attacked power lines in Jänschwalde in Brandenburg and in Bergheim west of Cologne.
There were also operations at other locations with critical energy infrastructure on Friday morning: a substation in Weisweiler near Aachen was searched. There is a letter of confession in which another crime is mentioned there, said a police spokesman.
In Lower Saxony, emergency services also examined the area at a substation in Ganderkesee near Oldenburg. A police patrol made a discovery there and requested additional forces, said a spokeswoman. She did not provide any further details.
The police emphasized that the investigation into the case in Dormagen is still in its early stages. On Thursday evening, a walker discovered suspected launchers at the substation and alerted the authorities. According to the police, the constructions found are very similar to the launching devices that unknown people used to shoot cables over the overhead lines in Bergheim and thus paralyze several power plant blocks.
According to information from “Bild”, timers and copper wires were attached to the launchers. The police are treating the case as a crime of sabotage.
A letter of confession that is available to the investigators could provide possible clues. A man from Gevelsberg in the Ennepe-Ruhr district is named as the author. An intensive search is currently underway for him, said the police spokesman. “Whether he is actually a suspect or a copycat must first be checked,” he emphasized.
The investigators take the information from the letter very seriously. That's why there was a major operation at a substation in Weisweiler near Aachen on Friday morning. In addition to the already known acts in Bergheim and Dormagen, the man also mentioned an attack on the power supply there. It initially remained unclear whether the officers found any suspicious items on site.
Several media outlets reported that the letter of responsibility cited the fight against fossil fuels as the motive for the acts. The police did not provide any information about this.
The “taz” reported on Thursday evening that it had received a letter of responsibility for the incident in Brandenburg, which, according to the postmark, was sent in North Rhine-Westphalia. According to the newspaper, the sender presents himself as a lone perpetrator who describes the homemade rockets used in detail. He cited the “immeasurable suffering” caused by the use of fossil fuels as a motive.
After extensive research, the “taz” expressly pointed out that it could not be clarified beyond doubt whether the author of the letter was also the perpetrator. The newspaper emphasizes that the crime in Bergheim is not mentioned in this letter.
Brandenburg wants to better protect critical infrastructure
In response to the power grid sabotage near the Jänschwalde power plant, the Brandenburg Ministry of the Interior announced on Thursday a new security center in the country to protect critical infrastructure. The attacks on the power grid in Jänschwalde and Bergheim showed how threatened the critical infrastructure in Germany is and that it urgently needs to be protected. “There are increasing signs that both attacks are part of a coordinated attack on our energy supply,” said Brandenburg’s Interior Minister Jan Redmann (CDU).
Critical infrastructure refers to all those areas whose impairment or failure can lead to supply bottlenecks, disruptions to public safety and other dramatic consequences. These include, for example, energy, information technology, transport, traffic, health, water, nutrition, finance and insurance, government and administration as well as media.
