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CRIME

18-year-old tortured by fellow inmates at Saxon juvenile home

An 18-year-old inmate of a juvenile home in Saxony was repeatedly tortured by other inmates and eventually committed suicide. Prosecutors have charged two inmates with attempted murder the magazine Focus reported Sunday.

Published: 5 July 2009 11:06 CEST
18-year-old tortured by fellow inmates at Saxon juvenile home
Photo: DPA

The two men reportedly held the victim under scalding water in the showers and beat him with a broomstick. The men, who are 15 and 24-years-old, also reportedly tied the 18-year-old to a chair, covered his face with a cloth and drew swastikas and SS runes on his body while other inmates joined in.

The abuse took place in May 2008 at a state-run juvenile facility in Regis-Breitingen. The accused prisoners reportedly told the 18-year-old that Russian prisoners at the home had put a price on his head and wanted him dead.

The man attempted to strangle himself in his cell, but failed in his first attempt. The men also tried to strangle the man themselves, but he was able to escape and alert guards.

The Focus report did not explain why Leipzig prosecutors have only now charged the pair with attempted murder.

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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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