After a large police operation at the synagogue in Hagen, there were several arrests.

The North Rhine-Westphalian Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) initially only confirmed the arrest of a young person on Thursday morning on the sidelines of a police swearing-in ceremony in Cologne.

Reul announced a detailed statement on the case for 1 p.m.

From security circles it was said that a 16-year-old Syrian was suspected of having prepared an explosives attack on the synagogue in Hagen.

The public prosecutor's office in Düsseldorf is investigating the young person on suspicion of preparing a serious act of violence that is dangerous to the state.

Pure burger

Political correspondent in North Rhine-Westphalia.

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On Wednesday, the synagogue was screened extensively, and the police also searched the apartment in which the young person is said to live with his father. As the Spiegel reports, the security authorities are said to have been made aware of the youth by a foreign secret service, who behaved suspiciously on the Internet. The young person is said to have spoken to a chat partner about an explosive attack on a Jewish place of worship. The reason for the possible attack is said to have been the beginning of the highest Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur.

The major action to secure the Hagen synagogue was completed during the night.

A Yom Kippur service planned for Wednesday evening was canceled at short notice.

On Thursday morning, the police said that “no evidence of a hazard was found”.

The Central Office for Tracking Terrorism in North Rhine-Westphalia is also involved in the investigation.

This was confirmed by the Düsseldorf Public Prosecutor's Office on Thursday of the dpa.

More details could not be given yet, as announced senior public prosecutor Benjamin Kluck.

From security circles it was said that the Attorney General was also involved.

The Hagen incident brings back memories of the terrorist attack on Yom Kippur two years ago in Halle. An armed right-wing extremist terrorist tried to break into the synagogue there. When the door held out, he shot a woman and a man nearby and injured two others while trying to escape.