In Germany, a man alleged to be suspected of links to ISIS has been released, according to German news media, due to lack of sufficient evidence.
The German BILD reported a man named “Laith Al Daham Deiri” (reported by the Wall Street Journal as “registered as Leeth Abdalhmeed,” or aka “Leith Abdul Hamid”) had been detained by German police authorities on accusations from Syria that he had previously been a part of the ISIS organization. He was detained at the Unna-Massen refugee shelter near Dortmund, Germany, questioned, and then released.
The German BILD (translated into English) stated that: “Syrian anti-ISIS activists had photos of the man put on the Internet – with these photos that got to German investigators, the terrorist suspects unmasked.” “According to the Syrian anti-ISIS activists is the battle name of the suspect ‘Laith Al Daham Deiri’. He comes from the East Syrian ISIS stronghold ez Zor and was there Deir among others responsible to hand over money to ISIS-fighters.”
Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) has determined that the photos were from an anti-ISIS group on Syria called “Deir ez-Zor Is Being Slaughtered Silent,” which had posted this warning on Facebook.
According to the Facebook posting, the reported anti-ISIS group stated (rough translation into English from Arabic) that “Laith Daham al-Dairi” official relations with the ” Daash ” in Deir ez-Zor region. That it had arrived a few days ago to Germany , which is at Camp Ona in Dotamond.” One of the photos show “Laith Al Daham Deiri” with his index finger in the air, with another man, which is the symbol extremists have been using to show solidarity with ISIS. Another photo appears to show the man with an automatic weapon of some kind. The Facebook site is owned by a group calling itself the “Navenda Ragihandine Media Center.” It reports on the efforts of Syrian Kurdish units, called Yekîneyên Parastina Gel (YPG) (Kurdish) or People’s Protection Units aka People’s Defense Units.
The Bild report (translated into English) stated that “The suspect came about a week ago with his sister and her husband (to an amputated leg who) in Unna on, had been unremarkable. Together, the family lived in a room – in the house where also the security and operational control of the DRC have their headquarters.”
The Bild report (translated into English) also stated that: “The 31-year-old had been released from police custody, said a spokesman for the Dortmund prosecutor. He denies being a member of the terrorist organization Islamic State. The authorities could not prove membership.”
The German SHZ media house reported that (translated into English): “A briefly detained refugee from Unna, suspected of terrorist links, is free again. The 31-year-old Syrian had been accused on a Arabic-language Web site to have worked for the terrorist militia IS. Thereupon he was arrested on Thursday, the same day but set free again. The truth of this assertion can not be verified, the Dortmund prosecutor said Henner Kruse on Friday. The 31-year-old has denied being a member of the IS. The authorities could not prove membership. ‘The suspicion is at best very vague,’ Kruse said. On such websites, many people would probably denounced. This is not uncommon. The Bundeskriminalamt is the page in question unknown. Well, among other things, the source of this page is to be determined. Kruse anticipates that the 31-year-old had returned to his family in a refugee camp. He had claimed to have come only 20 days ago to Germany.”
Previously, in the Wall Street Journal, journalist Mohammad Nour Alakraa and Andrea Thomas reported on a man, “registered as Leeth Abdalhmeed,” who has been detained by German police, and “suspect of links” to ISIS. “Leeth Abdalhmeed” was arrested the refugee shelter in Unna-Massen, Germany. The detained man was also reportedly known as “Leith Abdul Hamid,” referenced as a “midranking Islamic State official” who was involved in money transfer operations. Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFERL) had also begun to cover this report.
This is the second case in Europe this week; days ago a similar case was reported in Austria.
The original Wall Street Journal report stated:
German police on Thursday arrested a Syrian refugee suspected of links to Islamic State, a German prosecutor said, highlighting the potential security risks posed by Berlin’s open-door refugee policy.
The state prosecutor in the city of Dortmund, Sonja Frodermann, said a man who had registered as Leeth Abdalhmeed and was born in 1984 had been detained at the refugee shelter in Unna-Massen on Thursday afternoon on suspicion of having links to the Sunni terror organization.
The arrest will heighten concerns among opponents of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door refugee policy that Islamist terrorists might be hiding among the roughly one million refugees who entered Germany this year, half of them coming from war-torn Syria.
At least two members of the terrorist cell that killed 130 people in a series of attacks in Paris on Nov. 13 are known to have entered Europe via Greece as refugees using fake Syrian passports.
This week, Austrian police arrested two people at a Salzburg refugee shelter they suspect of being involved in the Paris attacks.
“We mustn’t regard refugees with a general suspicion. But it’s also true that concerns aren’t unfounded that some potential threats might be among refugees,” said Wolfgang Bosbach, lawmaker with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union party. “We must specifically emphasize the issue of [refugees’] valid identification to avert threats.”
For much of this year, overwhelmed German authorities stopped holding individual hearings for Syrians in a bid to speed up their asylum applications—a far cry from the exacting background checks conducted on Syrians who seek asylum in the U.S.
Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière said this month that asylum requests for Syrians would again be handled on a case-by-case basis rather than being granted by default to people who claim to be Syrian.
The German government didn’t reply to requests for comments on the arrest on Thursday.
Ms. Frodermann, the prosecutor, said German authorities were alerted by a Syrian national who had seen an article on a website connecting Mr. Abdalhmeed with Islamic State.
A Syrian opposition activist and two people contacted via the website where the report on Mr. Abdalhmeed first appeared said they knew Mr. Abdalhmeed as Leith Abdul Hamid, describing him as a midranking Islamic State official in the oil-rich province bordering Iraq since the militia became active there.
They said he ran a money-transfer operation for the terror group and was responsible for smuggling medicine and ammunition from Turkey.
They added that relatives of Mr. Abdalhmeed were also involved in Islamic State activities.
Those relatives couldn’t be contacted by the Journal.
One of the people approached by the Journal, Mohammad Alalaw, who said he was from Deir Ezzour in Syria but was now in Turkey, said Mr. Abdalhmeed was among the first Syrians who pledged loyalty to Islamic State even before the militia became the dominant force in the region.
He also said Mr. Abdalhmeed was a fighter with the Free Syrian Army until 2013, when he switched sides and pledged loyalty to the extremist group.
Ms. Frodermann said she had no information beyond what was on the website and that it remained to be seen whether the assertions were true.
Mr. Abdalhmeed arrived at the shelter in Unna-Massen on Dec. 2 and was registered first as Leeth Alrjab, said Bettina Jendrusz, deputy head of the Unna-Massen shelter, which is operated by the German Red Cross.
She said it wasn’t unusual for migrants to change their names in the course of registering with the authorities and applying for asylum, adding that Mr. Abdalhmeed had yet to give his fingerprints or undergo police checks with the local authorities.
Mr. Abdalhmeed stayed at the refugee center with four family members, Ms. Jendrusz said.
It wasn’t immediately clear which of his relatives had traveled with him to Germany. The prosecutor’s office said no other arrests were made on Thursday.
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As always, all those accused are innocent until proven guilty by a court of law.
Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) stands in support of our universal human rights for all, and we stand in defiance against those, including terrorist and hate groups, which seek to attack such universal human rights, dignity, and security for all.
We cannot support human rights, if we also do not reject those who seek to rob our brothers and sisters in humanity of their lives and security, which are also our universal human rights.
