German police probe 4 teen suspects over school threats
Police in Germany said Friday that they have identified four teenaged suspects during investigations into threatening emails that forced the closure of schools last week.
A 15-year-old from Berlin is believed to have sent an email which forced classes at the Max Planck secondary school in the western city of Duisburg to be canceled on Thursday.
Three other teens aged between 16 and 17 who live in Duisburg are also under investigation, Duisburg police said in a statement.
It was unclear how the three were involved in the threatening email.
Police said in the statement that the three Duisburg suspects had been identified after the Berlin suspect's home and phone had been searched.
According to German news agency dpa, police believe the teens from Duisburg wanted to prevent an exam from taking place at their school.
Thursday's closure came after emails containing racist threats and right-wing extremist content led to 20 schools in Duisburg being shut on Monday, which forced in-person teaching for nearly 18,000 pupils to be canceled.
Police are also looking into whether the four teens were also involved in those emails that were sent over the weekend.
"Investigations into the extent to which the suspects are connected to the other threatening letters are ongoing," the statement said.
Herbert Reul, the Interior Minister of North-Rhine Westphalia state, where Duisburg is located, praised the police's speedy response.
"The police have pulled out all the stops in no time at all and used all the technical means at their disposal to determine the backgrounds of the suspects of the Duisburg threatening emails," Reul said.
"Such threatening emails are not a trivial matter," he added.
The school closures come as the far-right movement in Germany continues to gain strength.
In federal elections earlier this year, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party won the most votes by an extreme right group since World War 2, and is now the largest opposition party in the Bundestag.
Edited by: Wesley Dockery
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