Tolga Dürbin

Who is Tolga Dürbin?

Tolga Dürbin, largely identified in the media as "Tolga D." as authorities attempt to shield his identity, is a 29-year-old German-Turkish man closely associated with the 2007 bomb plot in Germany, who had been known to the BfV as an "Islamist".

Attending the Multi-Kultur-Haus in Ulm, the Turkish-born Dürbin introduced his friend Fritz Gelowicz to Wahhabi Islam. Gelowicz and Dürbin had worked together in the solar heating business owned by Gelowicz's father.

In 2006, he travelled to Egypt, after studying Arabic at an unrelated masjid in Ulm.

On June 10, 2007, he was arrested, together with stateless Lebanon-born Saarland resident Hussain al-M., trying to cross the Pakistani-Iranian border using forged Afghan refugee cards. At the time of his arrest, he was carrying several thousand euros, several thousand dollars and a satellite phone, and alleged to be trying to establish contact with the Islamic Jihad Union. Der Spiegel later mistakenly referred to it as an "al Qaeda training camp".

As of July 2, 2007, he was still being held in a Pakistani prison where officials refused to extradite him to Germany since his crime of visa fraud had occurred in Pakistan. However, Pakistan had made overtures of deporting him back to Germany. His flight back to Germany arrived on August 15 and he was promptly arrested at the airport, accused of corrupting al-M. and possessing jihadi videotapes. Other sources said he was "under investigation" for "racist" attacks.