Dutch Police Arrest Frenchman Suspected Of Terrorist Plot
By RFE RL
(RFE/RL) — Dutch prosecutors say police have arrested a French citizen in Rotterdam on suspicion of involvement in the planning of a “terrorist attack” against France.
The 32-year-old man was arrested March 27 at the request of the French government and is expected to be handed over to France soon, prosecutors said in a statement.
Three other men were taken into custody as well, two of whom have an “Algerian background,” the statement said. The third man’s identity could not be immediately established.
Residents were evacuated from homes near addresses on two streets that Dutch counterterrorism police raided on March 27, prosecutors said.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said the arrested suspect was allegedly involved in a plot disrupted by French police in the Paris region last week. Another Frenchman, Reda Kriket, was detained March 24 near Paris in connection with that alleged plot and remains in custody.
An official with the Paris prosecutor’s office told the Associated Press that there is currently no indication of a link between Kriket’s purported plot and a network behind the recent deadly terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels.
EU governments have been on high alert and have stepped up counterterrorism cooperation since the November attacks in Paris, which left 130 people dead, and the March 22 attacks in Brussels that killed 31 and wounded 270.
Earlier on March 27, Germany’s Die Welt newspaper reported that European security authorities were searching for at least eight more suspects tied to the attacks in the two cities carried out by IS-affiliated terrorists.
