German police are searching for a man who left a bag containing explosives at a Berlin railway station and fled after being stopped by federal police officers on Wednesday, German media reported.
A police spokesperson told media on Thursday, adding that authorities had not yet been able to identify the suspect:
“We are investigating all possibilities.”
Police officers spotted a suspicious man at the train station in Neukölln and decided to check him out. Upon noticing the law enforcers, the man ran away and threw a bag, which was found to contain explosives. The police officers took the bag to a nearby park where they set off a controlled explosion that was heard hundreds of metres away.
According to a law enforcement official, if the explosive device had gone off in close proximity to a group of people, there would have been dire consequences.
The BILD newspaper reported that the bag contained triacetone triperoxide, an unstable white explosive powder known as TATP and often used by extremists in attacks on the public.
