BERLIN (Reuters) – German police have arrested four German nationals on suspicion of planning to kidnap Health Minister Karl Lauterbach and destroy electrical installations to cause a nationwide blackout.
“The two main suspects have agreed with other people to attack the Federal Minister of Health,” a spokesman for the Koblenz court said on Thursday, confirming information from the German television channel ARD.
The prosecutor’s office said the group also planned to kidnap other well-known public figures, without giving details of their identities.
The suspects are believed to be affiliated with groups protesting against COVID-19 restrictions and the far-right “Reichsbuerger” movement, which denies the existence of the modern German state, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
According to the German minister, the plot to kidnap him shows that opposing forces are using demonstrations against health restrictions to destabilize the country’s state and democratic system.
“They are a small minority in our society, but they are very dangerous,” the health minister said at a press conference.
The individuals were communicating in a chat group called “Vereinte Patrioten” (United Patriots in German) and “intended to create civil war-like conditions and overthrow the democratic system in Germany”, added the office.
Authorities raided 20 properties in several German federal states on Wednesday, confiscating weapons including pistols, a Kalashnikov assault rifle, ammunition, as well as euro and foreign currency cash, gold bars and silver coins.
Authorities also uncovered fake vaccination certificates and fake COVID-19 tests.
The office has asked a judge to issue arrest warrants for the four detained suspects. A fifth suspect is still at large.
The kidnapping plan is the latest in a series that has exposed the anger of some Germans over restrictions on people who have not been vaccinated against the coronavirus and proposals to make vaccination compulsory.
(Reporting by Maria Sheahan; French version Dina Kartit, editing by Kate Entringer)