German arrests: No terror link yet

BERLIN, Germany -- Police have so far failed to find any link between al Qaeda and a couple arrested on suspicion of planning a September 11 anniversary bomb, prosecutors have said.

Explosives were found in the couple's flat but prosecutors have failed to connect American Astrid Eyzaguirre, 23, and her German-born Turkish boyfriend Osman Petmezci, 25, to international terrorism, Reuters reported.

The Heidelberg prosecutor's office said in a statement late on Tuesday: "Intensive investigations have not found any evidence to date that the suspects were members of a terrorist organisation or had contacts to people in such groups."

Eyzaguirre, who worked at a store at a U.S. base in Heidelberg, and Petmezci, 25, who worked at a chemical warehouse in Karlsruhe, were arrested earlier this month.

Their arrest coincided with worldwide heightened security fears of an anniversary attack by members or allies of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda guerrilla group.

Heidelberg is home to 16,000 American soldiers, family members and support staff for the U.S. Army's European headquarters.

It is also a historic university city that attracts thousands of foreign students and tourists.

Germany was on high alert because Mohammed Atta, believed to have been at the controls of the first plane that crashed into the World Trade Center, had lived and studied in Hamburg.

A police statement at the time of the couple's arrests said that Eyzaguirre, "who had already expressed pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish remarks, told (a friend) that her boyfriend had been gathering chemicals in their apartment from his job at a chemical plant in Heidelberg to build a bomb."

Thomas Schaeuble, interior minister for the regional state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, originally described Petmezci as a "follower of Osama bin Laden."

It is not clear whether the couple could still face any charges connected to the home-made explosives found in their flat.