Live: Germany's Attorney General statement on far-right plot to overthrow state

Streamed live 9 hours ago
Germany's Federal Attorney General Peter Frank is to give a statement in Karlsruhe as Germany arrests 25 suspected of far-right plot to overthrow state.

The search operation is reported to have covered 130 properties belonging to 52 suspects in 11 German states. Of the 25 men and women arrested, 24 were from Germany and one suspected supporter is from Russia. One arrest took place in Austria and one in Italy. There are 27 other suspects, the federal prosecutor's office said. Prosecutors identified the suspected ringleaders only as Heinrich XIII P. R. and Ruediger v. P., in line with German privacy rules. The news magazine Der Spiegel reported that the former was a well-known 71-year-old member of a minor German noble family, while the latter was a 69-year-old former paratrooper. According to prosecutors, Heinrich XIII P. R., who the group planned to install as the new leader of Germany, had made contact with Russian officials seeking to establish a new order in Germany once the Berlin government was overthrown. A Russian woman, Vitalia B, had allegedly given him help with this. The Russian embassy in Berlin denied having links to far-right terror groups. A currently-serving soldier in the Bundeswehr's Special Forces Command (KSK) as well as several Bundeswehr reservists are also among suspects in the case, a spokesperson for Germany's Military Counterintelligence Service (MAD) told the DPA news agency. A search was reported to have been carried out at the soldier's home and his barracks office in the state of Baden-Württemberg.

The trigger for the raids was an investigation into another Reichsbürger group that had planned to kidnap German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach.