Suspected Bomb Plot Probe Hit Snag

German authorities had suspicions nearly two months ago about a Turkish man suspected of plotting to bomb U.S. military bases in Germany, but bureaucratic procedures delayed his arrest until last week, a prosecutor said Sunday.

A tip from U.S. security officials about a witness who reported that the suspect had chemicals at home reached German prosecutors in mid-July, but a judge at put off questioning, scheduled for Aug. 13, the woman because the summons couldn't be delivered, said Elke O'Donoghue, a prosecutor in the city of Stuttgart.

When the witness was interviewed later, she said suspect Osman Petmezci "was planning something very soon," O'Donoghue told The Associated Press. Prosecutors got a search warrant on Aug. 30 — six days before Petmezci, 24, and his American fiancee Astrid Eyzaguirre, 23, were arrested Thursday near Heidelberg, home to U.S. Army Europe headquarters in southwestern Germany.

German authorities so far believe the couple was acting alone, despite citing evidence that they admired Osama bin Laden and shared some of his convictions, including a hatred of Jews. Federal prosecutors, who would likely take over from Baden-Wuerttemberg state authorities if a link to a terror network were discovered, were still reviewing the evidence Sunday.

Baden-Wuettemberg state investigators and Heidelberg prosecutors said Sunday that they were focusing on whether the couple acted alone or as part of a group. Federal investigators and U.S. security officials were supporting the probe, a statement Sunday said.

O'Donoghue's account was the most detailed yet of events leading to the arrests in couple's shared apartment in Walldorf, six miles south of Heidelberg. She said the reason for putting off the questioning was that the summons was not delivered on time, and the witness interview was done later by police.

Inside the couple's third-floor apartment, police found 287 pounds of bomb-making chemicals, which investigators said Sunday could have been used to make about 44 pounds of gunpowder, along with five pipe bombs, a book about bomb-making and electronic parts, apparently intended as detonators. Also found were a picture of Osama bin Laden and computer diskettes.

Technical experts were assembling the bomb-making materials to determine how much damage would have been exerted, investigators said Sunday.

Germany's top security official urged calm Sunday, saying there is no evidence that al-Qaida members are in Europe to carry out attacks on the anniversary of Sept. 11.

"Certainly we have to determine in the course of the investigation if the arrested man had links to other people or is part of a group," Interior Minister Otto Schily told Germany's most-read Sunday newspaper, Bild am Sonntag.

Even as Bild am Sonntag published a new poll showing that 62 percent of the German public fear a terrorist attack on their soil, it quoted Schily as saying there was no need "to lapse into panic."

He called for increased vigilance around the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, even though there was "no specific evidence" that al-Qaida members were poised for attacks in Germany or elsewhere in Europe, according to the paper.

The German weekly Der Spiegel reported over the weekend that a friend of Eyzaguirre's told U.S. military police that the woman had warned her to stay away from the military shopping area for the next few days.

Eyzaguirre worked at the base store, known as a PX, and had access to many facilities at Campbell Barracks, which besides the army headquarters also contains the Army's 5th Corps headquarters and a NATO facility.

Petmezci is believed to have stolen the bomb-making materials at a chemical warehouse where he worked, Schily said. State authorities said he had previous convictions for theft and drug offenses.

Petmezci's father, Mehmet, reportedly was shocked about his son's arrest. "I cannot imagine my son being a terrorist," he was quoted as saying by Bild am Sonntag.

But the paper said he recalled how his son liked to play with fireworks. "Already as a boy, he made his own New Year's firecrackers. He loved it when things went bang," the father was quoted as saying.

No one answered the doorbell at the father's home despite several attempts over the weekend.

Walldorf is a town of 14,000 that houses a large American military community as well as a Turkish mosque and an Islamic center run by Milli Gorus, a group that has been under observation by German intelligence officials. One neighbor, Juergen Meyer, has recalled that Petmezci openly disdained Jews, though he said he thought it was "all nonsense."

Yet there apparently were other signs. An unidentified neighbor told the Sunday newspaper Welt am Sonntag that a few drops of a chemical spattered onto his head from Petmezci's balcony two months ago, sending him screaming with pain into the stairwell. Petmezci apologized, saying he was using paint thinner to remodel the apartment, the paper said.

Officials had no comment Sunday on a German television report that investigators were looking into possible links between the male suspect and an Islamic center in Heidelberg that was previously under investigation for allegedly helping finance the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa.