Europe's news in English

COPY LINK

CRIME

Defendant kills witness in Dresden court

A 32-year-old woman was killed in a Dresden court on Wednesday after being stabbed by the defendant. Meanwhile bystanders were injured as the 28-year-old man was overpowered.

Published: 1 July 2009 13:59 CEST

Defendant kills witness in Dresden court

Photo: DPA

Police spokesman Thomas Geithner confirmed that the woman was still in the building when she died of her injuries. “The man attacked the woman with a knife in the courtroom,” Geithner said, adding that a policeman had fired a shot in the ensuing struggle.

All the background details are not known yet, but a spokesman for the state prosecutor said that the incident, which occurred shortly before 10:30 am, happened during an appeal hearing in a libel case. The defendant had been convicted and fined for libel last year.

Bettina Garmann, a spokesman for the court, said that there had been no reason to believe that special safety procedures would be necessary for the case.

The incident recalled a similar scene of courtroom violence in the Bavarian town of Landshut in April, when a 60-year-old man shot his sister-in-law before turning the gun on himself, following an inheritance ruling.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.

Become a Member to leave a comment.

German police swoop on gang of foreign dating scammers

The Black Axe gang was involved internationally in “multiple areas of criminal activity”, with a focus in Germany on romance scams and money-laundering, Bavarian police said in a statement.

The dating trick was a “modern form of marriage fraud”, police said.

“Using false identities, the fraudsters for example signalled their intention to marry and in the course of further contact repeatedly demand money under various pretexts,” police said.

The money was subsequently transferred to Black Axe in Nigeria “via financial agents”, authorities said.

In the process, the gang used a “commodity-based money laundering” scheme where products, often with a seeming “charitable purpose” were bought and delivered to Nigeria.

Some 450 cases of romance scamming had been reported in the region of Bavaria in 2023 alone, with the damages rising to 5.3 million euros ($5.7 million), police said.

The suspects, who all held Nigerian citizenship and were aged between 29 and 53, were arrested in nationwide raids on Tuesday.

Law enforcement swooped on 19 properties, including both homes and asylum shelters, police said.

The Black Axe gang had “strict hierarchical structures under leadership in Nigeria” operating different territorial units, police said.

The group had a “significant influence” on politics and public administrations, in particular in Nigeria.

Globally, the gang’s main areas of operation were “human-trafficking, fraud, money-laundering, prostitution and drug-trafficking”.

Black Axe operated under the cover of the Neo Black Movement of Africa, an ostensibly charitable organisation used as “camouflage” for the gang’s structures.

The action against Black Axe was the first of its kind in Germany, police said.

Url copied to clipboard!