Police arrest another suspect in German neo-Nazi serial case

BERLIN - Agence France-Presse

Demonstrators wear T-shirts bearing the portraits of Turkish and Greek immigrants murdered by a small neo-Nazi group called the National Socialist Underground during a protest against racism in downtown Berlin December 10, 2011. REUTERS photo

German police Sunday arrested a man on charges of providing support to a neo-Nazi cell believed to have killed 10 people in a case that has shocked the country, officials said.

Police arrested Matthias D. at his home in the east of the country, the federal prosecutor said in a statement.

Matthias D. is suspected of helping the group rent two apartments, thus allowing its members "to live under false identities and to commit terrorist attacks without being discovered," the office said in a statement.

The group calling itself the National Socialist Underground (NSU) is believed to have murdered 10 people, mostly shopkeepers of Turkish origin, and also to have carried out at least 14 armed robberies to finance their activities.

Two NSU members were found dead last month in an apparent suicide and the other, a 36-year-old woman identified as Beate Z., has turned herself in but refused to speak to police.

Officials declined to tell reporters whether she had since provided any evidence.

On November 24 authorities arrested a man identified as Andre E., who stands accused of making a chilling video in 2007 -- discovered only last month -- in which the militants claimed responsibility for the murders.

Another man, 37, has been detained on charges of aiding and abetting the group as police search for further accomplices.

A third suspected accomplice, Ralf Wohlleben, had "clear connections" to the far-right NPD political party, Ziercke said, although it had not yet been established whether the cell used party infrastructure to plan the murders.