Germany Charges Syrian Man With Planning Attack in Copenhagen

German authorities charged a Syrian man who was arrested last November as he tried to travel to Denmark with planning to build a bomb and detonate it in a crowd in the capital of Copenhagen, public prosecutors said on Monday.

The Syrian man came to Germany in 2015 and lived in a refugee shelter in the Biberach area in the southern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg before his detention on Nov. 19, the Stuttgart prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

Authorities found more than 17,000 matches, a pack of fireworks, 17 batteries, six walkie talkies and two kitchen knives in the man’s luggage when he tried to leave Germany for Denmark, it said. He was 20 years old at the time.

The suspect planned to build an explosive device with the objects and to detonate it in Copenhagen in a gathering of people, according to the statement.

The Second Youth Chamber of the Ravensburg Regional Court must now decide on the opening of proceedings against the man, it added.