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CRIME

Murder probe into baby thrown from fifth floor

Berlin police have launched a murder investigation after a newborn baby was found dead near a block of flats – investigators say it was thrown from the fifth floor.

Published: 20 November 2011 13:51 CET
Murder probe into baby thrown from fifth floor
Looking down from the sixth floor of the block of flats. Photo: DPA

A 67-year-old resident of the block in the Charlottenburg district found the baby which was in a plastic bag, on Sunday morning as he was on his way to buy bread.

A special armed commando team was summoned to arrest a 40-year-old woman, a 15-year-old girl and a 45-year-old man from one of the flats in the block. They were called because the man reportedly has a criminal record for violence.

It is thought the 40-year-old woman had given birth to the baby on Saturday night in the flat where she lived with her teenage daughter. There is no information about whether the arrested man was the father of the baby.

People living nearby have said the woman had tried to hide her pregnancy, although police would not comment on the rumours.

But a police spokesman said his colleagues were sure the baby had been thrown out of the flat. “There are clear signs for that,” he said.

A post-mortem examination will be conducted to determine whether the child was alive when it was thrown from the flat or whether it had died beforehand.

DAPD/The Local/hc

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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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