Man held in Netherlands suspected of preparing terror attack on Allah-Las gig

A man arrested in the Netherlands early on Thursday morning is suspected of preparing a “terrorist attack” on a concert by an American rock band, Dutch police have said.

Police detained the 22-year-old in Brabant province, south of Rotterdam, after an alert from Spanish colleagues. The Spanish warning led to the cancellation of a performance on Wednesday night by Los Angeles band Allah-Las.

“The suspicion is that the suspect is involved in the preparation of a terrorist attack,” the Rotterdam police chief, Frank Paauw, said.

“There is no terror threat now any more,” he added. “There is no threat because we have arrested a suspect and the information about the threat was so specific on the location of the event that, with that arrest, we can conclude that the threat is gone.”

The venue, a former grain silo called Maassilo that can accommodate 5,000 people, was evacuated at 7pm, just half an hour before the band were due on stage, with organisers citing an “unspecified threat”.

Police searched the man’s home after his arrest but released no details of anything they found. His identity was not released, in line with Dutch privacy guidelines.

The 22-year-old man was being questioned to determine exactly what his role was in the threat, police spokeswoman Svetlana Westermeijer said. No charges had been filed yet.

If authorities want to prolong the suspect’s detention they will have to arraign him at a closed-doors hearing with an investigative judge before the end of Friday, prosecution spokeswoman Jeichien de Graaff said.

The man lives in the small town of Zevenbergen, which is 30 miles (50km) south of Rotterdam. Neighbours told Dutch TV the suspect was “a quiet man” who lived with his parents, who are currently on holiday.

Sources told Dutch radio the man had been arrested after “making threatening statements” over the messaging app Telegram, which has been used by Islamic State to spread its propaganda.

Meanwhile, a Spanish mechanic who was detained on Wednesday night was largely ruled out of the investigation.

The man, a repairman, had been driving, apparently drunk, close to the Maassilo venue.

A check of his van by explosives experts found nothing suspicious beyond five gas canisters, and officers searching his home “uncovered no link with the terror threat … at the Maassilo,” police said.

Spanish authorities had already said it was unlikely there was any connection between the van driver and the attacks in north-eastern Spain.

The Dutch counter-terror coordinator, Dick Schoof, commended the police action on Twitter, saying it was “alert, appropriate for the current threat level”.

Schoof left the country’s threat level unchanged at “substantial”, the fourth step of a five-level scale.

It was not clear what the exact nature of the threat to the concert was, or if the band’s name played any role in the threat.

In an interview with the Guardian last year, band members said they had chosen the word Allah, Arabic for God, because they were seeking a “holy sounding” name and had not realised it might cause offence.

“We get emails from Muslims, here in the US and around the world, saying they’re offended, but that absolutely wasn’t our intention,” said the lead singer, Miles Michaud. “We email back and explain why we chose the name and mainly they understand.”

Police in Warsaw, Poland, said security was being beefed up for the band’s performance there on Thursday night.

Robert Szumiata of Warsaw police told Associated Press they had no information of any threat to the concert to be held at the downtown Niebo, or Heaven, club.

Still, he said that uniformed and plainclothes police would be deployed at and around the concert site in order to “ensure security of people taking part in the concert and those who will find themselves in the area”.

Spain, already on high alert following last week’s deadly attacks in and near Barcelona, played a key role in the events of Wednesday and Thursday.

A Spanish counter-terrorism official said Spain’s civil guard received “an alert indicating the possibility of an attack in a concert that was going to take place in Rotterdam”.

Source: theguardian