BERLIN (AP) — German prosecutors announced terrorism charges Wednesday against a man who they say may have planned to attack the Israeli Embassy in Berlin and intended to join the Islamic State group in Pakistan.
The suspect, a Russian national identified only as Akhmad E. in line with German privacy rules, was arrested on Feb. 20 at the capital's airport as he prepared to board a flight. He has now been indicted on charges of supporting a foreign terrorist organization, attempted membership in such a group, and preparing a serious act of violence.
Federal prosecutors said in a statement that the suspect initially planned to carry out an attack in Germany, possibly on the Israeli Embassy. He allegedly found instructions for making explosives on the internet but was unable to pursue the plan because he couldn't get a hold of the necessary components.
At the same time, the suspect was allegedly translating propaganda into Russian and Chechen for IS. Prosecutors said he intended to join the group in Pakistan and get military training, and that he financed the trip by taking out two contracts for expensive smartphones, which he then sold.
He allegedly sent a video declaring loyalty to the group to a suspected IS member outside of Germany shortly before his departure.
The indictment was filed earlier this month to a court in Berlin, which will now have to decide whether to send the case to trial.
Police officers stand by the Israeli embassy in Berlin, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (Paul Zinken/dpa via AP, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — A surging stock market and a flurry of deal making padded the profits of Wall Street's two big investment banks, which both saw a double-digit jump in profits in the fourth quarter.
Goldman Sachs's net earnings rose 12% from a year earlier, posting a profit of $4.62 billion, or $14.01 a share. Meanwhile Morgan Stanley said it earned $4.4 billion, or $2.68 per share, compared to a profit of $3.71 billion, or $2.22 per share, compared to a year earlier.
Wall Street has been bolstered by the Trump administration's deregulatory policies, which has led corporations to seek out mergers and acquisitions, as well as the surge of investor interest in artificial intelligence companies and those who stand to benefit from the mass adoption of technologies like ChatGPT.
Fourth-quarter investment fee revenues over at Goldman were up 25% year-over-year and Morgan Stanley saw a 47% jump in revenue in its investment banking division. Both banks said their investment fee backlog, which is a signal of how much deal making is still pending that banks are working on, increased significantly in the fourth quarter.
Goldman and Morgan's results reflect the strong earnings out of the other big banks that reported their results this week. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup all saw jumps in fourth-quarter profits, but their results were dampened by the ongoing tensions that Wall Street is having with the White House over the issue of the independence of the Federal Reserve and President Donald Trump's interest in capping credit card interest rates at 10%.
Along with a strong investment banking performance, Goldman Sachs also agreed to sell off its Apple Card credit card portfolio to JPMorgan Chase last week, effectively exiting its brief experiment in consumer banking. The bank sold the credit card portfolio at a discount to JPMorgan, a sign of how desperately Goldman wanted to exit the business and put the Apple Card behind it.
This story has been corrected to show that Morgan Stanley's investment banking revenues rose 47%, not 22%.
FILE - Electronic signage is shown at Morgan Stanley headquarters, Thursday, March 4, 2021 in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)
FILE - In this Dec. 13, 2016, file photo, the logo for Goldman Sachs appears above a trading post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
