There are no indications of a particular terrorist threat, for example at christmas markets, the interior ministry stressed in berlin on thursday. The two suspects from bonn’s main train station had still not been caught three days after the bomb scare. Investigators assume an attempted attack – but they do not yet know whether terrorists were behind it.
The chairman of the bundestag interior committee, wolfgang bosbach (CDU), certainly suspects a terrorist background. He therefore cannot understand why the federal prosecutor’s office has not yet taken over the investigation. Bosbach referred to the danger of the explosive device on the television station N24 and asked: "what other motive could there have been than to terrify the country with a terrorist attack??"
Meanwhile, the federal criminal police office (BKA) warned against jumping to conclusions. The federal ministry of the interior stated that there were no indications of danger to specific targets: "this also applies to christmas markets. Therefore, with all vigilance, we should not allow our daily lives to be affected."The north rhine-westphalian interior minister ralf jager (SPD) also appealed to the citizens not to let themselves be intimidated. "We must remain vigilant, but not fearful," he told the "general-anzeiger" in bonne.
Avoiding public places, christmas markets or soccer games would be exactly the wrong thing to do, jager emphasized. If the dangerous explosive device was in fact planted by terrorists, they intended to do just that.
Meanwhile, police continue to search for two suspects with several hundred officers. One is a bright-skinned man who can be seen on the video of a mcdonald’s outlet on the platform of track 1 at bonner hauptbahnhof (bonner main station). On the camera pictures from monday afternoon, the police assume that he is carrying the blue bag that contained the bomb. The police describe the video recording as a "hot trace". The second wanted man is dark-skinned and coarse. He is said to have put the blue bag a little later two young people directly in front of the fube and ran away. How to interpret this, the police also do not yet know.
To the suspects the investigators got since wednesday evening new tips from the population. "We are currently evaluating this," said police spokesman thomas held. Video images of the platform itself did not exist. A railroad spokesman said there was a video camera there, but no recorded images.
The vice chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the bundestag, gunter krings, demanded: "we need more consistent use of video cameras at train stations. It is incomprehensible that at a main station of a big city like bonn, the police have to resort to video sequences from mcdonald’s in order to get a recording of the perpetrator."