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CRIME

Turkish center hit by multiple Molotov cocktails

A Turkish educational centre was hit by six Molotov cocktails early Sunday morning, police have said. A witness said three or four youths were behind the attack.

Published: 8 February 2009 10:58 CET

The assailants threw the incendiary devices against the façade of the facility, located in the Ruhr valley city of Dortmund. One device broke through a window when it was thrown but did not ignite. The others went out after they were thrown and failed to cause appreciable damage.

No one was in the building at the time of the attack.

One resident in the neighbourhood reported that a loud bang attracted his attention at around 4 am Sunday morning. He said he saw three or four youths at the scene, but could not provide a description of them.

Police so far have no other information about the background of the attacks and have begun an investigation.

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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