Heroic refugees ‘turned down £1,000 BRIBE after tying up most wanted ISIS fanatic who plotted airport bombing’
The refugees tied up terror suspect Jaber al-Bakr, 22, and called police despite his offers of money to let him go
THREE Syrian refugees have been hailed as heroes after "turning down a £1000 bribe" and instead tied up a wanted terror suspect who was plotting a jihadist bomb attack in Germany.
Jaber al-Bakr, 22, eluded elite cops for two days, before posting in a Facebook group for Syrian refugees asking for a place to stay, German newspaper reported.
According to one of the asylum seekers, he and his friend picked up al-Bakr and brought him to another friend’s apartment.
But they became suspicious of him when he asked one of them to shave his head for him.
When they realised his identity after seeing a police appeal on Facebook regarding the suspect, they decided to tie and gag him to stop him escaping before contacting cops.
One of the refugee, who has not been named for fear of reprisals by Islamic State, claimed: "He [Bakr] offered us 1,000 euros (£1,000) if we let him go.
"He had that in a backpack together with a knife. I am so grateful to Germany for taking us in. We could not allow him to do something to Germans.”
Abdulaziz Alhamza, a Syrian activist living in Berlin and founder of the anti-ISIS group , was one of the first to post a Facebook appeal to warn others of al-Bakr.
His group consist of citizens documenting executions and general life under the terrorist group in the volatile city of Raqqa in Syria.
When German police arrived to arrest in Leipzig's Paunsdorf district on Monday they found his countrymen had tied him up with electrical cord after tricking him into thinking he was safe, reports .
Before the suspect was trapped he is pictured with a full head of hair and in the picture showing him being restrained by the heroic refugee he has a shaved head.
reports that one of the men then took a picture of the suspect and went to the police station to show officers the picture before the arrest.
Security had been stepped up at airports and train stations after al-Bakr went on the run Saturday, when police raided his apartment and found several hundred grams of "an explosive substance more dangerous than TNT.”
The police are keeping the brave refugee's identities secret for security reasons as they believe they could be targeted in revenge attacks.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s official spokesperson, Ulrike Demmer, said: "Our thanks and our recognition go out to the man from Syria who informed the police about the suspect's whereabouts."
"We've succeeded, really overjoyed: the terror suspect al-Bakr was arrested overnight in Leipzig," police said on Twitter on Monday.
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Police had said that "even a small quantity" of the explosives uncovered ";could have caused enormous damage".
Local media reported that the material was TATP, the homemade explosive that was used by jihadists in the Paris and Brussels attacks.
Al-Bakr was believed to have had internet contact with death cult ISIS, Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported.
According to security sources quoted, he had built ";a virtual bomb-making lab" in the flat in a communist-era housing block and was thought to have planned an attack against either one of Berlin's two airports or a transport hub in his home state of Saxony.
Acting on a tip-off from the domestic intelligence agency, police commandos had sought to swoop on the Syrian early Saturday at his apartment building in the eastern city of Chemnitz, about 85 kilometres from Leipzig.
But he narrowly evaded police, local media said.
Meanwhile, Al-Bakr's Syrian flatmate has been formally remanded in custody as a suspected co-conspirator of a "serious act of violence" while two other of his associates, who had been detained earlier, have been released.
Police commandos on Sunday also raided the Chemnitz home of another suspected contact of al-Bakr, blasting open the door as they stormed the premises, and took away a man for questioning.
Spiegel said al-Bakr had entered Germany on February 18, 2015 and two weeks later filed a request for asylum, which was granted in June that year.
Germany has been on edge since two IS-claimed attacks in July - an axe rampage on a train in Wuerzburg that injured five, and a suicide bombing in Ansbach in which 15 people were hurt.
The bloodshed has fuelled concerns over Germany's record influx of nearly 900,000 refugees and migrants last year.
Heightening public fears, German police say they have foiled a number of attacks this year.
In late September, police arrested a 16-year-old Syrian refugee in Cologne on suspicion he was planning a bombing in the name of IS.
A week earlier, they detained three men with forged Syrian passports who were believed to be a possible IS "sleeper cell" with links to those behind the November Paris attacks.
German authorities have urged the public not to confuse refugees with "terrorists", but have acknowledged that more jihadists may have entered the country among the asylum seekers who arrived last year.
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