By Rachel More
BERLIN (Reuters) -Italian police have arrested a Ukrainian man suspected of coordinating the attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines, Germany's prosecutor general said on Thursday, adding that he would be brought before a German judge after being transferred.
Seen by both Russia and the West as an act of sabotage, no one has ever taken responsibility for explosions that severely damaged pipelines carrying gas from Russia to Europe in September 2022, marking a major escalation in the Ukraine
conflict and ramping up an energy supply crisis on the continent.
The suspect, identified only as Serhii K. under German privacy laws, was part of a group of people who planted devices on the pipelines near the German island of Bornholm in September 2022, a statement from the prosecutor's office said.
He and his accomplices had set off from Rostock on Germany's north-eastern coast in a sailing yacht to carry out the attack, it said, adding that the vessel had been rented from a German company with the help of forged identity documents via middlemen.
Authorities acted on a European arrest warrant for the suspect, who faces charges of collusion to cause an explosion, anti-constitutional sabotage and destruction of buildings.
Carabinieri officers arrested him overnight in the province of Rimini on Italy's Adriatic coast, the German prosecutors' statement said.
Italian police had no immediate comment.
(Reporting by Rachel More in Berlin and Gavin Jones; editing by Matthias Williams)
