The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) rejected on Wednesday an arrest warrant issued by federal prosecutors against a 27-year-old Syrian accused of plotting an attack for terror group Isis.
The young man’s lawyer described his arrest as a “scandal” in an interview with Spiegel.
Prosecutors had only presented judges with minimal evidence which had clearly not convinced them, the lawyer said.
Federal prosecutors also confirmed that the judge did not consider the evidence presented as sufficient “for an urgent suspicion of criminality.”
Police investigators told DPA that no explosives were found during a search of his apartment.
The Syrian nonetheless remains in custody on charges of possessing falsified documents.
He had been arrested on Wednesday evening in the Schöneberg district of Berlin on suspicion of plotting an act of terrorism for Isis.
Investigators had described him to Focus Online as “highly dangerous” and “a second Jaber Albakr.”
Albakr was allegedly plotting a terror attack on a Berlin airport before police in Saxony raided his house. After a two-day manhunt he was caught. He then apparently hung himself in his jail cell.
Germany has so far been spared large-scale jihadist attacks.
But it was shaken by two assaults claimed by IS and carried out by asylum seekers – an axe rampage on a train in Würzburg that injured five, and a suicide bombing in Ansbach in which 15 people were hurt.
