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Stolen German cars linked to Tajik elite

Around 200 cars stolen in Germany have been tracked down in Tajikistan, where most are now driven by family and friends of President Emomali Rakhmon, media and officials in Berlin said on Thursday.

Published: 19 December 2013 13:46 CET
Stolen German cars linked to Tajik elite
President of Tajikistan Emomali Rakhmon. Photo: DPA

The case of the German-registered cars, including 93 BMWs located via GPS,has caused friction between Germany and the Central Asian country, Bild newspaper reported.

A German foreign ministry spokeswoman did not confirm the Bild report that former foreign minister Guido Westerwelle had called in the Tajik ambassador over the case this year.

However, she told AFP that "there have been talks with the Tajik side on cooperation in fighting organized crime".

The cars were located by the "Westwind" task force of German and Lithuanian investigators, mostly using the vehicles' GPS systems, said Berlin city justice department spokeswoman Lisa Jani.

When Tajik authorities failed to respond to requests to help in the investigation, Berlin's justice minister Thomas Heilmann wrote to Germany's then-foreign minister Westerwelle, she told AFP.

"Most of the vehicles are in the possession of people who have business or family ties with the family of the Tajik president," Heilmann wrote to the foreign minister, said Jani.

Tajikistan has to date not replied to the request for legal assistance or taken steps to return the cars, she added.

An official contacted at the Tajik embassy in Berlin said he could not immediately provide an official statement.

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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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