A German soldier who posed as a Syrian refugee in an alleged terror plot had previously visited Sandhurst as a guest of the British Army, it has emerged.

Franco Albrecht was pictured at the Royal Military Academy in Berkshire in 2014 three years before his arrest.

Prosecutors alleged he planned to murder public figures while disguised as a refugee, in order to turn public fury on Syrian migrants.

The case is still ongoing in Germany but it has now emerged he trained with British recruits as part of an elite exchange programme.

German soldier Franco Albrecht is pictured at the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst in 2014, three years before his arrest on suspicion of planning a terror attack

According to the Sunday Telegraph the lieutenant took part in joint events with Sandhurst while training at a military academy in France.

He is said to have visited Sandhurst in 2013 and 2014 and was pictured on the latter trip, wearing his uniform among a crowd as soldiers parade behind him.

Albrecht was freed from custody pending investigation and trial in November 2017 but remains a suspect.

He was arrested in 2017 in a case which sparked widespread fears in Germany of a far-right cell inside the military.

In the wake of the arrest German military bosses ordered a search of all army barracks to find any evidence of Nazi sympathies.

Albrecht had allegedly had created the false identity of a Syrian fruit seller from Damascus to register himself as a refugee.

He was accused of stealing weapons and explosives from the military and drawing up a list of possible political targets.

According to prosecutors, he hoped a murder of a politician would 'be seen by the population as a radical Islamist terrorist act committed by a recognised refugee'.

The issue of Syrian migration has been the subject of bitter dispute in German politics since Angela Merkel (pictured) opened her country's doors amid a 2015 refugee crisis

His lawyers have depicted him as an amateur detective who merely wanted to expose problems in Germany's immigration system.

They have also disputed prosecutors' claims of far-right links, according to German-language media.

The case is still ongoing.

The wave of immigration into Germany has provoked a huge backlash and sparked the greatest challenge of Angela Merkel's 13-year reign in Berlin.

Tensions over Merkel's 2015 decision to open Germany's doors to a million asylum seekers have helped the anti-migrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party rise to prominence.

The tension has been greatest in the former East Germany where unemployment is still higher than that in the West, almost 30 years since the Berlin Wall came down.

Merkel has said she will not seek a fifth term, meaning she will leave office in 2021 at the latest.