German couple who tested ricin on hamster charged with 'plotting Islamist attack'
A couple who tested the effects of the poison ricin on their hamster have been charged by the government of Germany with plotting a terrorist attack.
On Thursday, German authorities said suspects Sief Allah H. and Yasmin H. started plotting for attacks in 2018 after Sief Allah H. failed to cross into Syria from Turkey two times, one year earlier.
After the suspects returned to Germany, GBA says he started posting Islamic State propaganda on the internet. Things escalated from there.
A Tunisian man and his German wife who bought ricin and tested the lethal toxin on a hamster have been charged with plotting Islamist-motivated attacks using a biological weapon, German prosecutors said on Thursday.
The GBA Federal Prosecutor's Office said that 30-year-old Sief Allah H. and 43-year-old Yasmin H. had acquired knowledge on how to turn ricin into a weapon and ordered 3,300 grains of the poison, which can be found in castor beans, online.
Sief Allah H. was arrested in Cologne in June and police detained Yasmin H. a month later. The couple also face charges of planning attacks using metal balls and homemade explosives as well as seeking membership of Islamic State.
Prosecutors in Germany would not say if the suspects picked a date or location for their planned attacks.
More at general-anzeiger-bonn.de.