A 51-year-old Montenegrin man is in custody in Bavaria in southern Germany on suspicion of trying to supply arms and explosives to the Paris attackers, authorities in Munich have said.



The man was stopped in a Volkswagen Golf with Montenegrin plates near Germany’s border with Austria on 5 November. Officials found a pistol under the bonnet, prompting them to take the car apart. In doing so, they uncovered a sophisticated smuggling operation, with automatic weapons, 200 grammes of dynamite, hand grenades and ammunition concealed in the car’s bodywork, according to Bavarian public radio.

Examination of the suspect’s mobile phone and the car’s GPS system indicated the detainee was en route to Paris.

Paris attacks: police raid property in Belgium 'linked to Isis assault' – live Read more

Bavarian investigators alerted the French authorities immediately after the man was arrested, the report said.

The interior ministry in Munich confirmed the report.

“Someone transporting several Kalashnikovs, hand grenades and explosives could be from the serious crime sector, but there are reasons to suspect that this is about terrorist intentions, or someone supplying weapons to terrorists,” said Joachim Herrmann, the Bavarian interior minister. His department was “intensively investigating together with the French authorities whether there is a connection with the events in Paris”, he said.

In addition to the alleged Montenegrin and German connections, there were reports that at least one of the attackers’ cars had Belgian registration plates.

All the signs were that the Paris attacks would inevitably affect Europe’s struggle to come to terms with its current migration crisis, in which many of the arrivals are Muslims from Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East.

The new rightwing government in Warsaw was the first to seek to make political capital from the horrific events, saying the attacks meant that the EU’s new compulsory quota system for sharing refugees was dead.

Paris terror attacks: Hollande says Isis atrocity was 'act of war' Read more

“Poland must retain full control over its borders, asylum and immigration,” said country’s the new minister for European affairs, Konrad Szymański.

The speed and strength of his remarks sparked an outcry and he later toned them down, but the issue will not go away. Europe’s anti-immigration cheerleader, the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, will feel vindicated in his views that western Europe is reaping what it has sown through a disastrous policy of liberal multiculturalism that will not be repeated in central and eastern Europe. He has plenty of support.

The disaster will also put pressure on the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, the foremost proponent of openness towards refugees, to shift her position. She hopes to make significant progress towards stemming the flow of refugees in talks with Turkish leaders at a G20 summit in Antalya over the next two days. She is, however, under mounting pressure from within her own coalition to erect tighter border controls.

“We need to know who is travelling through our country,” said Horst Seehofer, the Bavarian prime minister and leader of Merkel’s sister party, the Christian Social Union. “As well as more security measures, we need tighter control of the European borders, but also of the national borders.”