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CRIME

Police arrest murder suspect 25 years on

German police have arrested a man on suspicion of killing a young girl more than 25 years ago, on the basis of DNA evidence, prosecutors said on Tuesday.

Published: 17 September 2013 14:21 CEST
Police arrest murder suspect 25 years on
Photo: DPA

In November 1987, nine-year-old Christina was found sexually assaulted and strangled in the western city of Osnabrück.

“The girl did not hear her alarm clock, which is why she left late for school without the friends she usually walked with,” said public prosecutor Alexander Retemeyer.

“She took a shortcut crossing through a garden where it was a bit dark. That is where she encountered a 19-year-old man.”

The young man tried to rape her and when the girl threatened to tell her mother, he strangled her, the prosecutor said.

The victim’s clothes were sealed and stored and particles of the killer’s skin were removed as evidence.

“With scientific progress in the meantime, it has been possible to isolate the DNA and the case was featured on the television show Aktenzeichen XY (about unsolved crimes), which led us to tips about a suspect from a viewer,” Retemeyer said.

“The suspect was ordered to provide a DNA sample, which matched what we

had. He was arrested Sunday morning and confessed Sunday afternoon.”

The man, now 45, was remanded in custody on a charge of murder to cover up a crime.

“The special charge is important because the statute of limitations on a killing alone has run out,” Retemeyer said.

READ MORE: Frankfurt Germany’s biggest crime city

AFP/atje

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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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