German police on Tuesday said they had arrested a 48-year-old man suspected of carrying out a series of sabotage attacks on the country’s electricity network.
The suspect was reportedly spotted near the Weisweiler power station, close to Aachen in western Germany, after being sought by authorities for several days.
How were the attacks carried out?
Investigators suspect the man of trying to cause short circuits at several locations in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia, Brandenburg and Saxony over the past week, using homemade rockets to fire thin conductive wire across high-voltage power lines.
The method appears to have worked in at least two cases.
In Bergheim, west of Cologne, several units at a power station were put out of operation for several days.
At a substation near the Jänschwalde power station in Brandenburg, more than 20 homemade rockets were allegedly used to fire conductive material onto power lines, causing two short circuits.
However, neither incident resulted in a power outage.
This is a breaking news story. Check back here for updates.
