A 28-year-old Austrian man suspected of being a radicalised Islamic terrorist has been arrested at Ledra Palace checkpoint as he was trying to enter the government-controlled areas from Turkish-held north Cyprus, said the state news agency.
The man was on an Interpol alert list originally issued in Poland, said Justice Minister Ionas Nicolaou.
It is thought he was on his way to Larnaca to pray in Tekke mosque. He was caught on the night of August 3rd because of the increased security measures to prevent terrorism, said the minister.
Cyprus police are in touch with the Austrian authorities and the suspect will be extradited, said Nicolaou.
Terrorist attacks on the rise in the EU
There were 211 terrorist attacks carried out in six EU member states in 2015, in which 151 innocent victims died and over 360 were injured, says Europol. France has been especially affected, with 424 suspected terrorists arrested out of 1,077 EU-wide.
A majority, 94 percent, of the suspects were found guilty during prosecution.
Figure 1: Number of failed, foiled or completed attacks; number of arrested suspects 2013 to 2015
Europol outlines two worrying trends: the overall threat is reinforced by the substantial numbers of returned foreign terrorist fighters that many Member States now have on their soil, and the significant rise in nationalist (xenophobic), racist and anti-Semitic sentiments across the EU, each resulting in acts of right-wing extremism.
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