![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/german-press-conference.jpg.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nLocal officials in Germany hold a press conference Thursday on the death in Leipzig of Jaber al-Bakr, who was arrested on suspicion of terrorism. The 22-year-old Syrian was found hanged in his cell on Wednesday night. (Photo credit: Arno Burgi\/dpa via AP)<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Albakr’s public defender, Dresden attorney Alexander Huebner, told The Associated Press prison authorities should have done more to prevent his client from harming himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I can’t understand how they didn’t assume there was a suicide risk,” he said. “In this case, there should have been total surveillance with someone sitting in front of him.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Huebner said he last spoke to his client for 90 minutes on Tuesday and noted that he was agitated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Saxony’s Justice Minister Sebastian Gemkow acknowledged that, with hindsight, mistakes had been made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It should not have happened, even though we did everything we could to prevent it,” Gemkow said, dismissing suggestions that he might resign over the lapse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Authorities have another suspect alleged to have been involved in the plot in custody, identified only as Khalil A. in keeping with German privacy laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 33-year-old Syrian was the tenant of an apartment in the city of Chemnitz where police found hidden explosives and was arrested over the weekend as a co-conspirator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A spokesman for Germany’s attorney general \u2014 who handles terrorism-related cases \u2014 said prosecutors would continue to investigate the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “We have to look at this soberly,” Stefan Biehl told The Associated Press. “One always hopes that the accused provide further information. If one of two accused persons falls away then a potential source of information disappears.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “We’re simply going to continue with what’s left and try to determine the background to this deed,” said Biehl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Albakr was granted asylum after arriving in Germany last year, but had been under surveillance by German domestic intelligence since last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He eluded Saxony state police on Saturday as they prepared to raid the Chemnitz apartment where he had been staying. Inside the apartment police found highly volatile explosives and a homemade bomb vest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He was arrested Monday in Leipzig after one of the three Syrians who tied him up brought a mobile phone photograph of the suspect to local police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Wednesday, de Maiziere said that Albakr had undergone a security check last year, but it did not turn up anything suspicious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kerstin Sopke in Dresden, Germany, contributed to this report.<\/i> Syrian Jaber Albakr apparently strangled himself in his cell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":61813,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":86,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":{"4":{"categories":["pentagon-congress","news"],"primary_category":"pentagon-congress"},"5":{"categories":["pentagon-congress","news"],"primary_category":"pentagon-congress"},"6":{"categories":["pentagon-congress","news"],"primary_category":"pentagon-congress"},"7":{"categories":["pentagon-congress","news"],"primary_category":"pentagon-congress"}}},"categories":[10,15,86],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3123,2524],"class_list":["post-54528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flashpoints","category-news","category-pentagon-congress"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"GNLGCFLGY5AWPJGMANJVJWYD5M","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/pentagon-congress\/2016\/10\/13\/bombing-suspect-s-jail-death-deprives-german-authorities-of-key-source-on-isis\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n