German police have detained a 49-year-old man accused of asking for donations of cryptocurrency to pay for the assassinations of prominent politicians, prosecutors said on Tuesday.
Former chancellors Angela Merkel and Olaf Scholz were named on a list of 20 people the man had issued with a “death sentence”, along with former federal ministers, according to the German magazine Der Spiegel.
The suspect, named only as Martin S, was picked up by elite counterterror units in Dortmund late on Monday and charged with financing terrorism.
They claim that the Polish-German citizen ran a site on the dark web called “Assassination Politics”, where, among other things, the private data of famous people was published.
The name of the site is believed to be a reference to a 1995 essay by US anti-government activist Jim Bell, who described a marketplace for anonymous parties to donate money for the assassination of government officials.
The suspect was also charged with inciting the commission of a serious act of violence endangering the state, and the dangerous dissemination of personal data.
Investigators said they found criminal files and death sentences issued against public figures, as well as far-right, racist and conspiracy theory content, and instructions on how to make explosives.
Prosecutors did not identify any of the people on the list, or specify the nature of the data that was divulged.
Germany’s interior minister Alexander Dobrindt said the investigation into a suspect trying to finance attacks via “a right-wing extremist platform” had been underway since June, but declined to give further details.
Prosecutors did not address the suspect’s motive or suggest that he was working for a foreign actor.
The suspect is believed to have been known to authorities since 2020 due to his behaviour during the Covid lockdowns, according to the German news programme Tagesschau.
He is also said to have been linked to the conspiratorial Reichsburger movement, whose members deny the legitimacy of the postwar Federal Republic of Germany.
“The accused will appear before an investigative judge, who will decide whether to issue an arrest warrant,” prosecutors said in their statement on Tuesday.
German politicians have said they are increasingly subject to attacks, both verbal and physical, at a time of deepening polarisation.
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