AFP, Berlin :
Four assault rifles used in the deadly Paris attacks were allegedly purchased from a trafficker in Germany, newspaper Bild reported today.
Quoting documents from the Stuttgart prosecutor’s office, the newspaper said two AK47s and two Zastava M70s were sold on November 7 by the arms dealer to a customer in Paris.
“French investigators believe that the weapons were allegedly used in the attacks in Paris,” said Bild.
The Stuttgart prosecutor was not immediately available for comment.
According to Bild, German police on November 16 arrested a 34-year-old man named Sascha W. from the southern city of Magstadt on suspicion of the illegal weapons trade.
The suspect is accused of having hawked the weapons on Darknet — a hidden network used for both licit and illicit ends — using the name “DW Guns”.
Four emails on his smartphone show that he sold “four Kalashnikovs assault rifles to an Arab in Paris”, added the newspaper.
During a raid at the suspect’s house, police also found 16 other firearms, Bild said.
Meanwhile, Belgian emergency services evacuated the biggest mosque in Brussels and decontaminated 11 people on Thursday after the discovery of a suspicious package containing what turned out to be flour, officials said.
With the EU capital on its highest terror alert, firefighters in chemical suits and gas masks were called in to the Great Mosque of Brussels amid fears that white powder in the package could be anthrax.
“It was just flour. Everything is negative, the cordon has been lifted, “Brussels fire brigade spokesman Pierre Meys said after the mosque was sealed off for three hours, adding that the substance had been analysed at a laboratory.
The mosque, the city’s biggest, is located just a few blocks from the major EU institutions and many embassies and was cordoned off by police and firemen.
The alert came with Brussels on maximum security levels in the wake of the Paris attacks on Nov 13, with two Belgium-linked suspects still on the run.
Fire brigade captain Anne Wibin, who was at the scene, said eleven people, including two police officers, were decontaminated as a precautionary measure after the package was found.
“A parcel was found at the entrance to the mosque and found to contain white powder. We are taking all preventative measures in case it is anthrax but it is a precautionary measure,” she said earlier.
“People in direct contact were isolated and decontaminated and also those who were in indirect contact.” Meys, the spokesman, said that four people were taken to hospital.
A worshipper said the development was worrying given the tensions after the Paris attacks which left 130 people dead when the militant Islamic State group (IS), several of them residents of Brussels, went on the rampage.
“I’ve been speaking to the staff on the telephone and was told the imam found the package,” said Mohamed Dahmichi, standing across the street.
“It’s not good. With everything else happening in Brussels at the moment I’m afraid to leave the house these days.
