(DPA) Four suspected members of the Palestinian militant group Hamas went on trial in Berlin on Tuesday, accused of having maintained secret weapons depots for the radical Islamist organization in several European countries.
“For the first time in Germany, people are facing charges of having participated as members of the foreign terrorist organization Hamas,” German federal prosecutor Jochen Weingarten said on Tuesday.
Shortly after the unprecedented Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, the German prosecutors received a tip from the country’s BfV domestic intelligence service about a “conspiratorial weapons-related operation by Hamas in Germany,” Weingarten revealed, which prompted covert investigations.