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CRIME

Murderer of German girl commits suicide in jail

A Turkish man jailed for raping and murdering an 11-year-old German girl in 2004 has committed suicide in prison, Anatolia news agency reported Saturday.

Published: 12 July 2008 17:03 CEST
Murderer of German girl commits suicide in jail
File photo of Gulbay at his trial in March 2006. Photo: DPA

Bulent Gulbay, 39, hung himself in his cell in a jail in the central province of Karaman, where he was moved from another prison after being attacked by fellow inmates, the agency said.

The man was sentenced to life in 2006 for raping and strangling to death Lisa Eder, who was holidaying with her family in Alanya, a Mediterranean resort popular with German tourists.

Gulbay, who had twice been convicted for molesting minors in the past, had been running a souvenir shop near the hotel where the Eders were staying in October 2004.

The girl’s body was found dumped in the ruins of a castle outside Alanya a day after she went missing after visiting Gulbay’s shop.

The murder sparked a huge uproar in Alanya, prompting the city council to ban ex-convicts from running shops in the area, which is home to some of Turkey’s largest tourist resorts.

CRIME

Teenager turns self in after attack on German politician

A 17-year-old has turned himself in to police in Germany after an attack on a lawmaker that the country's leaders decried as a threat to democracy.

Published: 5 May 2024 12:52 CEST
Teenager turns self in after attack on German politician

The teenager reported to police in the eastern city of Dresden early Sunday morning and said he was “the perpetrator who had knocked down the SPD politician”, police said in a statement.

Matthias Ecke, 41, European parliament lawmaker for Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD), was set upon by four attackers as he put up EU election posters in Dresden on Friday night, according to police.

Ecke was “seriously injured” and required an operation after the attack, his party said.

Scholz on Saturday condemned the attack as a threat to democracy.

“We must never accept such acts of violence,” he said.

Ecke, who is head of the SPD’s European election list in the Saxony region, was just the latest political target to be attacked in Germany.

Police said a 28-year-old man putting up posters for the Greens had been “punched” and “kicked” earlier in the evening on the same Dresden street.

Last week two Greens deputies were abused while campaigning in Essen in western Germany and another was surrounded by dozens of demonstrators in her car in the east of the country.

According to provisional police figures, 2,790 crimes were committed against politicians in Germany in 2023, up from 1,806 the previous year, but less than the 2,840 recorded in 2021, when legislative elections took place.

A group of activists against the far right has called for demonstrations against the attack on Ecke in Dresden and Berlin on Sunday, Der Spiegel magazine said.

According to the Tagesspiegel newspaper, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser is planning to call a special conference with Germany’s regional interior ministers next week to address violence against politicians.

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