Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

CRIME

Hunt for double killer suspect goes nationwide

The hunt for the man who police say shot and killed two women and seriously injured a man in Berlin on Thursday, has gone nationwide, after authorities admitted they could not find him – and that he was still armed.

Published: 5 August 2011 15:29 CEST
Hunt for double killer suspect goes nationwide
Shooting suspect Mehmet Yildirim. Photo: DPA

Mehmet Yildirim, 25, is being sought across the country, a police spokeswoman said on Friday, a day after the bloodbath in the capital’s Wedding district.

It is thought at least 14 shots were fired at a car in which Yildirim’s 24-year-old former wife was sitting with her 45-year-old mother and 22-year-old sister as well as two men aged 27 and 24.

Yildirim’s former wife, named by the city’s tabloid newspaper BZ on Friday as Feride, was unharmed in the attack, but her mother died at the scene, while her sister died of her injuries later in hospital. The 27-year-old man who was hit in the head by a bullet, was operated on Thursday night and remains in a critical condition. The 24-year-old man wasn’t hurt.

The BZ newspaper reported that Yildirim had harassed and threatened Feride after their marriage collapsed – and that she had even received a court order banning him from approaching her.

Police were on Friday distributing a photo of Yildirim across the country, as well as following up reported sightings of him received Thursday evening.

The shooting was particularly shocking as it happened in a busy district of the city in broad daylight and seemed to be carried out with precision. Witnesses described it as an outright execution.

“I am stunned and shocked,” said a neighbour who immediately ran to the scene after hearing shots Thursday and saw the carnage in the car. “The perpetrator simply ran away.”

Wedding is known as a centre for Berlin’s Turkish-born population, which one neighbour called “socially difficult.”

Police sealed off a large area around the crime scene for several hours on Thursday as they gathered evidence and searched for the shooter.

DPA/DAPD/mdm/hc

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

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.

SHOW COMMENTS