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CRIME

300 Russians and Turks brawl in Bavaria

A group of some 300 young Russians and Turks brawled in Fürth after leaving a disco early on Sunday morning, Bavarian police reported on Monday.

Published: 12 January 2009 16:26 CET
300 Russians and Turks brawl in Bavaria
Photo: DPA

Just after midnight an altercation between the two sides escalated into a massive fight involving teenagers and young adults near the club. Police estimated there between 250 and 300 young people involved.

“As the first patrol cars arrived the young people scattered in all directions,” a police statement said.

But police were able to detain some well known violent offenders at the scene. A short while later more fights were reported and police questioned some 50 rowdies nearby.

The rumble resulted in at least three dangerous injuries, police said. Other people suffered knife wounds and broken noses.

Authorities took five underage ruffians between the ages of 16 and 19 into custody and returned them to their parents. All of those arrested were under the influence of alcohol, police reported.

Fürth police inspectors are investigating the event using video surveillance of the area.

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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