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CRIME

Suspect keeps silence over teen murders

Police confirmed on Tuesday afternoon they were holding a local man suspected of murdering two teenagers in Lower Saxony but said the 26-year-old was refusing to answer charges put to him.

Suspect keeps silence over teen murders
Photo: DPA

The state prosecutor, Hans Hugo Heimgärtner, was planning to take the suspect before a judge and get a warrant to continue holding him, Heimgärtner’s spokesman said.

He was arrested overnight in a village in the Northeim district not far from Bodenfelde, where the teenagers lived and where their bodies were found in a secluded wooded area on the edge of town.

The state prosecutors refused to reveal further details about the man’s identity. They are also declining for now to reveal further details about how the teens died. But a post-mortem has confirmed they were not sexually assaulted.

Prosecutors planned to hold a press conference on Wednesday.

The bodies of the 13-year-old boy, Tobias, and 14-year-old girl, Nina, were found lying close to one another in a wooded area on the outskirts of the town of Bodenfelde on Sunday.

The police had been searching intensively for the girl, Nina, since Tuesday, when she was reported missing by her mother, criminal director Andreas Borchert said on Monday. Fellow students had seen and even spoken to her during the past week but she had hidden from police. One witness also reported seeing her with an unidentified man.

The boy, Tobias, had accompanied a friend to the train station in Bodenfelde on Saturday night around 8 pm but had not been seen after that. Borchert confirmed that the boy’s mother had found his body on Sunday.

DPA/The Local/dw

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BUSINESS

Elon Musk visits Tesla’s sabotage-hit German factory

Elon Musk travelled Wednesday to Tesla's factory near Berlin to lend his workers "support" after the plant was forced to halt production by a suspected arson attack on nearby power lines.

Elon Musk visits Tesla's sabotage-hit German factory

The Tesla CEO addressed thousands of employees on arrival at the site, accusing “eco-terrorists” of the sabotage as he defended his company’s green credentials.

With his son X AE A-XII in his arms, Musk said: “I am here to support you.”

The billionaire’s visit came a week after power lines supplying the electric carmaker’s only European plant were set on fire in an act of sabotage claimed by a far-left group called the Vulkangruppe (Volcano Group).

READ ALSO: Far-left group claims ‘sabotage’ on Tesla’s German factory

Musk had said then that the attack was “extremely dumb”, while the company said it would cost it several hundred million euros.

A week on, the lights have come back on at the site, but Andre Thierig, who heads the site, said on LinkedIn that it would “take a bit of time” before production is back to full speed.

Industry experts have warned that the reputational impact caused by the sabotage on the region could be more severe than the losses suffered by Tesla.

Tesla’s German plant started production in 2022 following an arduous two-year approval and construction process dogged by administrative and legal obstacles.

Tesla wants to expand the site by 170 hectares and boost production up to one million vehicles annually to feed Europe’s growing demand for electric cars and take on rivals who are shifting away from combustion engine vehicles.

But the plans have annoyed local residents, who voted against the project in a non-binding ballot last month.

After the vote, Tesla said it might have to rethink the plans. Environmental activists opposed to the expansion of the factory have recently also set up a camp in a wooded area near the plant.

READ ALSO: Why is Tesla’s expansion near Berlin so controversial?

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