BERLIN: German police have thwarted plans by neo-Nazis to attach makeshift bombs to model airplanes and target a gathering of their political opponents, prosecutors in the southern city of Freiburg said on Tuesday.
Police seized explosives, detonators and several model airplanes while searching the flats of four suspects and a neo-Nazi venue outside Freiburg last week, they said in a statement.
The suspected ringleader of the plot, an unnamed 23-year-old man, was arrested. Last month he was caught throwing a firecracker at a demonstration by anti-fascist groups against a far-right protest in the western city of Dortmund.
Police said they also found chemicals, narcotics and a video camera at the sites.
While the number of far-right supporters in Germany is declining, the discovery in 2011 of a neo-Nazi cell blamed for the murder of nine immigrants has highlighted a violent underground fringe not previously acknowledged by authorities.
Germany's domestic intelligence agency estimates there are around 22,000 supporters of far-right or neo-Nazi ideology in Germany, a country of 82 million. Of these, around 9,600 are considered willing to use violence.
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