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CRIME

Police confiscate more amphetamines

German authorities have seized nearly twice as many amphetamines over the last two years as they did in 2009, according to a report published Saturday.

Published: 3 March 2012 09:38 CET
Police confiscate more amphetamines
Photo: DPA

According the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, last year authorities confiscated nearly three tons of the stimulant drug, compared to 1.5 tons seized in 2009.

Amphetamines, an illegal recreational drug, are commonly found in many medications used to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

One side effect of amphetamine use is a loss of appetite, and the drugs have long been abused by some dieters.

Wolfgang Schmitz of the Cologne customs authority told the newspaper that the drugs are a “people’s plague.”

A special commission of customs investigators and police is currently investigating the largest amphetamine case in German criminal history, the paper said.

DAPD/The Local/mw

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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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