German police have searched a number of apartments nationwide in an investigation into 25 Palestinians suspected of membership in a radical Islamic group, prosecutors said today.
Germany has conducted a number of raids against suspected Islamic militants after the country was shocked to learn that the attacks on the United States on September 11th, 2001, had roots in the German port city of Hamburg.
Mr Job Tilmann, a spokesman for the Frankfurt prosecutor's office supervising the case, said police in Frankfurt, Berlin, Hamburg and other cities searched 27 apartments yesterday.
"The investigation is being conducted on suspicion of creating a criminal organisation," he said.
"The Palestinians have Israeli or Jordanian citizenship and are suspected of belonging to the group Hizb-ut-Tahrir (Islamic Liberation Party), a radical Islamic group which has existed for nearly 50 years."
"It is a pan-Islamic group aimed at creating a Caliphate state for the Islamic world, but one hears they also have the goal of destroying Western democracy," he said.
The web site for the group backs the creation of an Islamic society. "The work of Hizb ut-Tahrir is to...change the situation of the corrupt society so that it is transformed into an Islamic society," it says.
Mr Tilmann said the investigation had not found evidence of violence planned by the group but said they were suspected of contacts to a terrorist group he did not name.