Hungary terror suspects are WWII enthusiast, court rules
By bbc
A court in Hungary has ruled that four men detained as
suspected terrorists were in fact World War Two enthusiasts.The men were arrested after visiting the site of a wartime
tank battle at the weekend, carrying old weapons they had found with a metal
detector.
News of their arrest drew heightened attention in the wake
of this month's Paris attacks in which 130 people died.
But the judge in Budapest said there was no evidence the
four men had links to terrorism.
The judge denied a prosecutor's application for the main
suspect, known only as Roland S, to be held in custody.
'Looking foolish'
The four men were detained after old weapons explosives were
found in their car during spot-check by Hungary's anti-terrorist police
following the 13 November Paris attacks.
The co-ordinated attacks - which were claimed by Islamic
State - targeted a series of sites in the French capital.
After the weekend arrests, Hungary's anti-terrorist police
chief Janos Hajdu said machine guns, silencers, and even a bomb-making
laboratory had been found at the home of one of the suspects
He also added that links to Islamist radicals could not be
ruled out.
But the Budapest court said on Wednesday that
"circumstances of the case point to the opposite".
The main suspect, it said, had no links with extremists and
no criminal record.
It said the man "lives with his mother and stepfather
and is a World War Two enthusiast".
The BBC's Nick Thorpe in Budapest says the anti-terror squad
has been left looking rather foolish.
All four, however, remain under investigation for unlicensed
possession of equipment capable of making explosives.
No comments:
Post a Comment