BERLIN

German police have arrested seven leading members of the outlawed militant Turkish Communist Party - Marxist-Leninist, the federal prosecutors’ office has said.

The German federal prosecutors’ office said on Thursday that Muslum E., the suspected leader of the TKP/ML group in Germany, and six other leading members of the outlawed organization were arrested the day before in operations carried out by special police forces.

Police also searched the houses of the suspected TKP/ML members.

The prosecutors said the suspects under arrest were members of the leading cadre in Germany, responsible for propaganda, training, recruitment, fund-raising and logistic support for the group’s activities in Turkey.

The suspects were accused of membership of a foreign terrorist organization.

The federal prosecutors’ office said in a statement the TKP/ML had carried out scores of armed attacks in Turkey and, since 2007, planned joint attacks with the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or the PKK.

 Armed attacks

TKP/ML militants have carried out propaganda and fund-raising activities in Germany since 1974 and the group has around 1,300 followers in the country, according to the latest annual German domestic intelligence report.

Founded in 1972 in Turkey, TKP/ML is a far-left organization carrying out illegal activities and armed attacks aimed at establishing Marxist-Leninist rule in the country.

It is listed as a terrorist organization in Turkey.

The Turkish government has long criticized German authorities for not taking strong action against terrorist organizations like TKP/ML, PKK and the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party–Front, or DHKP-C, which carry out propaganda, fund-raising and recruitment activities in Germany via undercover organizations.  

Germany has a three-million-strong ethnic Turkish community, the majority of who are second- and third-generation German-born Turks whose grandparents moved to the country during the 1960s.