It's shortly before four in the afternoon and I'm in the Ehrenfeld district of Cologne. I'm standing in front of a building where the terrorist suspect Jihad Hamad was said to have been building a bomb for attempted attacks on German trains last summer.

In typical "secret police" style, I look over my shoulder to make sure no one is watching. Then I take a look at the picture of Jihad Hamad that I have brought with me. The 21-year-old Lebanese man has black hair cut close to his head. He doesn't look particularly scary, but also not very friendly.

There are more name plates and doorbells than I can count at the entranceway of the apartment building. The once bright orange paint on the door handle, however, has meanwhile partially faded away. Perhaps from so many journalists attempting to get in, I wonder?

I try to imagine how -- three weeks after the bomb attempts on German trains failed -- hoards of agents from Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) were swarming around here during their investigations. I find it all a little hard to envision, especially when all I see is a little wooden sign in the front yard: "This is not a dog toilet."

No signs of terrorists

I see none of the tools needed to build bombs, none of the propane gas bottles, none of the igniters that were all supposedly found here last year.

I ponder how other journalists from the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) paper knew there was a hard disk in an apartment here that had stored instruction on how to put together explosives. There's no one around to lead me to the place where Hamad supposedly once lived.

Media frenzy

Disappointed that my eyes are not trained well enough to detect alleged terrorists like Hamad merely by taking a glimpse of their (former) places of residence, I turn on my heel and promptly bump right into one of the building's residents.

"I can imagine why you're here," the man says, furrowing his brow. He says people were staked out here for weeks last summer; the BKA agents were more inconspicuous than anyone, he says.

The media people, on the other hand, even had swinging cranes for TV cameras, he recalls.

He's used to the questions: "Nope, I never saw Hamad," he says. And with that, it's time for me to move on to my second stop.

Suspicions grow

On August 23, 2006, the Cologne edition of the Bild mass circulation paper wrote on its cover that Hamad had prayed in a nearby Muslim community center that also serves as a mosque. I leave the alleged terrorist hiding spot in the residential area, and drive to the center in Cologne-Ehrenfeld.

I am politely told that I forgot to take off my shoes at the door. I come to an immediate halt.

I talk with two members of the Turkish-Islamic Union of the Institute for Religion (DiTiB), who tell me that since the Hamad case started last year, people have become more suspicious of the DiTiB Muslim community.

But "those who come are seeking a holy presence," one of the men says.

He says he isn't aware of some "blockhead" who may have turned up in the community last year.

After all, "people don't wearing signs announcing things like that in public," he points out, and then zips up his jacket to leave.

Contentious mosque

It's 6:30 p.m. I intend to go see the political head of the Ehrenfeld district, Josef Wirges. On my way to his office, I pass by many Döner imbiss shops.

Wirges tells me that since the whole Hamad case started, the tactics of "pro Köln" (Pro Cologne) -- a faction in the Cologne City Council defined as "right-extremist" by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution -- against the DiTiB community have become increasingly aggressive.

Both Hamad and the plans to build a larger mosque near the DiTib center have fuelled the fire of right-wing propaganda, Wirges says.

Wirges, a Social Democrat, advocates the building the mosque. After all, he recalls that Metin Kaplan -- a hate preacher who was eventually arrested in Cologne -- didn't need a mosque. He was to gain in popularity by merely preaching in illegal back rooms.

A public place of worship, where German is also spoken, is therefore absolutely essential, Wirges points out.

He, along with the DiTib community members, want to present the construction plans for the mosque to Ehrenfeld residents at the start of May.

"pro Köln" says it has gathered 21,000 signatures against the building of the mosque.

Meanwhile, Wirges says he has received threats via e-mail.