Assassination attempt on German Chancellor Angela Merkel foiled in Czech Republic the capital of Czech Republic, British media reported on Friday.

As per details, police have arrested an armed man in a black Mercedes, who allegedly tried to join Merkel’s motorcade in Prague.

British media said that Merkel was on her way to Prime Minister’s house in Prague, when a suspected black car entered in her convoy. Police stopped the car and arrested the armed man.

Police spokesperson said that the suspect did not stop his car despite warning. The suspect stopped the car when he was given shoot out warning. Police recovered a box of tear gas, handcuffs and baton form his possession. </s> An assassination attempt on German Chancellor Angela Merkel has reportedly been foiled in Prague.

Czech police arrested a man after he attempted to drive his black Mercedes into the motorcade of visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Prague.

The police said the suspect was in custody and that Merkel was not in danger.

Local reports claim that officers found a baton, a canister of tear gas, cement blocks, and handcuffs in the man’s black 4x4 Mercedes.

The chancellor was in Prague to meet Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka.

She was travelling from the airport to the city when the suspicious vehicle appeared on the outskirts of the city,

The Mercedes driver is reported to have refused to obey orders coming from police cars accompanying the German chancellor.

He is alleged to have carried on trying to enter the motorcade and cut off a police vehicle that was trying to stop him.

The driver reportedly only stopped and got out of the vehicle after police warned him that they were going to shoot.

Merkel is meeting 15 other heads of state this week to create a new agenda after Britain’s decision to leave the European Union.

A series of demonstrations have greeted her in Prague, while demonstrators held posters saying “Merkel is killing Europe.” </s> Armed Czech police fired at a suspect driving a large SUV as it attempted to ram German Chancellor Angela Merkel's motorcade.

Merkel was on a visit to Prague when the man tried to break through a security cordon forcing local police to act.

Officers fired at the SUV which stopped. While searching the vehicle, officers recovered handcuffs, tear gas and concrete cubes, according to local media.

A man attempted to attack the motorcade of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, pictured here with Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka, right, as she made her way between Prague's airport and the nation's parliament building as part of her one-day working visit

Protesters were waiting yesterday outside the Czech parliament building to boo Merkel

Merkel, right, held talks with Sobotka, left, during the one-day working visit to Prague

The man was driving a black Mercedes SUV when he tried to attack.

Police spokesman Jozef Bocan said: '[The man] attempted to join the motorcade as it moved between Prague airport and Czech government headquarters.'

Bocan stressed that at no stage had Chancellor Merkel been in any danger.

He said: 'While attempting to join the motorcade, he tried to run down police securing the road. The suspect acted alone. He was not armed, but items found in the car could easily have been used as weapons, particularly some cement cubes.'

At the same time, protesters held highly offensive banners featuring the German chancellor

Merkel spoke with Czech officials about Britain's decision to leave the European Union

Bocan revealed officers had been forced to open fire to subdue the suspect who is now under arrest.

Merkel held talks Thursday with Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka and President Milos Zeman focused on the future of the European Union after Britain's June decision to leave the bloc. </s> Armed Czech police fired at a suspect driving a large SUV as it attempted to ram German Chancellor Angela Merkel's motorcade.

Merkel was on a visit to Prague when the man tried to break through a security cordon forcing local police to act.

Officers fired at the SUV which stopped. While searching the vehicle, officers recovered handcuffs, tear gas and concrete cubes, according to local media.

The man was driving a black Mercedes SUV when he tried to attack.

Police spokesman Jozef Bocan said: '[The man] attempted to join the motorcade as it moved between Prague airport and Czech government headquarters.'

Bocan stressed that at no stage had Chancellor Merkel been in any danger.

He said: 'While attempting to join the motorcade, he tried to run down police securing the road. The suspect acted alone. He was not armed, but items found in the car could easily have been used as weapons, particularly some cement cubes.'

Bocan revealed officers had been forced to open fire to subdue the suspect who is now under arrest.

Merkel held talks Thursday with Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka and President Milos Zeman focused on the future of the European Union after Britain's June decision to leave the bloc.

Several hundred protesters, including members of anti-Islam groups, rallied in central Prague against Merkel and her decision to open the EU's doors to refugees and migrants last summer. </s> A Syrian asylum seeker accused of a killing that sparked a week of far-right street violence in the eastern German city of Chemnitz in 2018 has been found guilty of manslaughter.

Alaa Sheikhi, 24, was sentenced to nine and a half years in prison by the Chemnitz higher regional court on Thursday.

The trial was held in the state capital of Dresden for security reasons and because of what the court called the “extraordinarily high public interest”.

The timing of the ruling is sensitive, coming just a over a week before state elections in Saxony in which the far-right and anti-immigrant Alternative für Deutschland could emerge as the strongest party.

The court verdict also comes almost exactly a year after Sheikhi and an accomplice are believed to have stabbed to death 35-year-old Daniel Hillig, a carpenter with German-Cuban roots, following a confrontation.

The main suspect, a 22-year-old Iraqi man referred to in German media only as Farhad A, remains at large and is believed to have fled the country.

The atmosphere in Chemnitz turned sour soon after news of Hillig’s death became public, culminating in two days of far-right street violence that left several people injured.

Some people were filmed chasing foreigners through streets, while others were seen with Nazi-linked banners and giving the straight-arm salute.

After police shut down a street festival, Chemnitz became the scene for a week of far-right protests, attended by thousands of neo-Nazis from across the country.

The Chemnitz riots also threw into doubt the future of Angela Merkel’s coalition government. At the time, the German chancellor’s spokesperson, Steffen Seibert, condemned the attacks, saying “such riotous assemblies, the hunting down of people who appear to be from different backgrounds or the attempt to spread hate in the streets, these have no place in our country”.

But the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, Hans-Georg Maaßen, directly contradicted the chancellor, telling the Bild newspaper that he shared “the scepticism towards media reports of rightwing extremists chasing down foreigners in Chemnitz”, and that “deliberate misinformation” had been spread.

In the fall-out over the comments Maaßen lost his job and the governing coalition between Merkel’s centre-right CDU and the centre-left SPD clashed to a point where their working alliance appeared to be on the brink of collapse. </s> BERLIN — German domestic intelligence chief loses job after spat with Chancellor Angela Merkel over anti-migrant violence.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. </s> Updated 6.50 pm

The van used in yesterday's attack is towed away last night Source: DPA/PA Images

GERMAN AUTHORITIES INVESTIGATING a deadly van ramming attack are focusing on the reported mental health problems of the driver, as the city of Muenster mourned for the two people killed on a sunny afternoon at an open-air restaurant.

“There are strong indications at the moment that this was a lone perpetrator and that there were no links to the terror scene,” federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer told reporters at the site of yesterday’s attacks, where local people laid flowers in memory of the victims.

Far-right opponents of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s refugee policy had suggested in the immediate aftermath of the attack it might be an Islamist act of terror, while some media reported the killer had links to right-wing extremist organisations.

But there are “no indications of a political motive,” said Hajo Kuhlisch, chief of police in the western city where the attack took place.

Rather, he added, “the motive and origins (of the crime) lie within the perpetrator,” a 48-year-old German identified as Jens R. who shot himself dead immediately after the crime.

A source close to the investigation told AFP there was a record of incidents related to the perpetrator’s impaired mental health since 2015, and that he had talked of suicide in late March.

Prosecutors said he faced allegations of threats, property damage and fraud in 2015 and 2016, all of which were dropped.

And broadcaster NTV reported he had threatened family members with an axe in 2014 and 2015.

The two victims killed in Muenster were a 51-year-old woman and a 65-year-old man, both from northern Germany.

As well as the dead, police said 20 were injured — some life-threateningly.

Police officers outside the city's cathedral. Source: DPA/PA Images

The foreign ministry in the Netherlands said two of those hurt were Dutch, one of whom was in a critical condition.

In the van, police found the gun used by the driver to kill himself, a blank-firing pistol and some powerful fireworks.

A search of the man’s Muenster apartment late last night turned up more fireworks and a deactivated AK47 assault rifle.

Police have appealed to the public for information, setting up a website where people can upload photos and videos.

‘No Islamist connection’

Armed police cordoned off a wide area around the scene of the attack, urging residents to avoid the city centre to allow investigators to get to work amid initial fears the country had suffered another extremist assault.

“I was on my way home through the city here and saw firefighters and ambulances everywhere. I thought something really terrible must have happened,” said Hubert Reckermann, a local man in his late 60s.

“It’s still unbelievable for me, but these days anything can happen. You can’t really defend yourself against people with psychiatric problems.”

Germany has been on especially high alert for jihadist attacks after several claimed by the Islamic State group.

But “we know with high probability that it was a lone perpetrator, it was a German, not a refugee,” said North Rhine-Westphalia state interior minister Herbert Reul.

“We know with high probability that there was no Islamist background” to the attack, inflicted as locals and tourists enjoyed a sunny spring day, he added.

Flowers at the location of the van attack. Source: DPA/PA Images

‘Deeply shaken’

Merkel said she was “deeply shaken” by the incident and pledged that “everything possible will be done to determine what was behind this act and to help the victims”.

The presidents of Russia and France, Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron, as well as Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy sent their condolences.

The attack is the latest in a string across Europe in which vehicles have been used to attack crowds of people in public places.

In a Berlin assault in December 2016, Tunisian asylum-seeker Anis Amri hijacked a truck and murdered its Polish driver before killing another 11 people and wounding dozens more by ploughing the heavy vehicle through a Christmas market.

He was shot dead by Italian police in Milan four days later while on the run.

In France, the Islamic State group claimed a 2016 truck attack in Nice on its July 14 national holiday that killed 86.

And in Spain, the jihadists also claimed a rampage along Barcelona’s Las Ramblas boulevard in August 2017 that killed 14 and left more than 100 injured.

© – AFP, 2018 </s> BERLIN: Angela Merkel’s government on Tuesday removed domestic spy chief Hans-Georg Maassen from office, transferring him to a different post to defuse an explosive row over immigration and the far right that once more rocked the German chancellor’s fragile coalition.

“Mr Maassen will become state secretary in the interior ministry,” Merkel and the leaders of her coalition parties announced in a statement after crisis talks. The face-saving compromise lets Merkel’s fourth-term government live to see another day, after her Social Democratic coalition partners had insisted on Maassen’s departure as head of the BfV intelligence service, against the wishes of Interior Minister Horst Seehofer from her Bavarian CSU sister party. Maassen, 55, was at the centre of a heated controversy after he raised doubts about the veracity of reports of far-right hooligans and neo-Nazis randomly attacking immigrants in the eastern city of Chemnitz in late August. In his senior new role, essentially a promotion, Maassen will not be responsible for supervising the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), the party leaders stressed in their statement. The far-right attacks in Chemnitz, which caused revulsion in Germany, were triggered by the fatal stabbing of a German man over which police are holding a Syrian suspect and searching for an Iraqi man. A court freed another initial Iraqi suspect on Tuesday. Days after the unrest, Maassen questioned the authenticity of amateur video footage showing street violence and voiced doubt that racists had indeed “hunted down” foreigners — comments that directly contradicted Merkel, who had deplored the xenophobic attacks and “hatred in the streets”. </s> An Iranian diplomat has been arrested along with two people suspected of plotting a bomb attack on a meeting of an exiled Iranian opposition group in France, Belgian authorities said on Monday.

US President Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani and several former European and Arab ministers were among those attending the meeting of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).

The two suspects in Belgium were intercepted by Belgian police on Saturday, with 500 grams of TATP, a home-made explosive produced of easily available chemicals, as well as a detonation device found in their car, a joint statement by the Belgian prosecutor and the intelligence services said.

The 38-year-old man and a 33-year-old woman, identified only as Amir S. and Nasimeh N., were charged with attempted terrorist murder and preparation of a terrorist act, it said.

Two arrests linked to the Belgian case were made in France and Germany. The person arrested in Germany was a diplomat at the Iranian embassy in the Austrian capital Vienna, the Belgian statement said.

Staff at the embassy said the ambassador was not immediately available for comment. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is due to visit Austria on Wednesday.
An assassination attempt against Angela Merkel is foiled by Czech police.