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CRIME

CDU politician ‘shot dead in garage’

UPDATE: A long-serving politician was shot dead on Monday night in his garage in central Germany, police said. The main suspect is a former colleague, who killed himself in front of officers hours later.

CDU politician 'shot dead in garage'
Wolfgang Potinius was killed on Monday night. Photo: GZ-W.de/DPA

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Identified by the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper as Wolfgang Potinius, the Christian Union (CDU) politician was found by police in his garage with gunshot wounds to his head and chest on Monday at 7.45pm. He died shortly after they arrived.

Inspectors in the Nidda area near Frankfurt, Hesse, soon turned their efforts towards finding a 56-year-old suspect. He and Potinius had both been involved in running different healthcare centres in the area.

His family members said he had gone missing that evening.

The suspected killer, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported, appeared in a state court six years earlier under suspicion of fraud. The case did not go to trial, the former personnel boss had to pay €1,200 and do 250 hours of community service.

He then moved over to working in Wetterau, where Potinius was head of the town's clinic.

Police went straight to his house in the town of Neu-Anspach, and at around 1.30am on Tuesday, he turned up with a gun outside the building.

Despite efforts from officers to get the man to put the gun down, he shot himself in the head in front of them, police said in a statement released on Tuesday.

An investigation into why exactly the man would shoot Potinius has begun.

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The politician had been head of a healthcare centre in the town of Wetterau for the past seven years.

He associated with a number of clinics across the area – including a number of psychiatric centres, the Frankfurter Rundschau said.

READ MORE: Man beats ex-in-laws to death with hammer

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CRIME

Aide to German far-right MEP arrested on suspicion of spying for China

An aide to a German far-right politician standing in June's European Union elections has been arrested on suspicion of spying for China, German prosecutors said on Tuesday.

Aide to German far-right MEP arrested on suspicion of spying for China

The man, named only as Jian G., stands accused of sharing information about negotiations at European Parliament with a Chinese intelligence service and of spying on Chinese opposition figures in Germany, federal prosecutors said in a statement.

On the website of the European Parliament, Jian Guo is listed as an accredited assistant to MEP Maximilian Krah, the far-right AfD party’s lead candidate in the forthcoming EU-wide elections.

He is a German national who has reportedly worked as an aide to Krah in Brussels since 2019.

The suspect “is an employee of a Chinese secret service”, prosecutors said.

“In January 2024, the accused repeatedly passed on information about negotiations and decisions in the European Parliament to his intelligence service client.

“He also spied on Chinese opposition members in Germany for the intelligence service.”

The suspect was arrested in the eastern German city of Dresden on Monday and his homes were searched, they added.

The accused lives in both Dresden and Brussels, according to broadcasters ARD, RBB and SWR, who broke the news about the arrest.

The AfD said the allegations were “very disturbing”.

“As we have no further information on the case, we must wait for further investigations by federal prosecutors,” party spokesman Michael Pfalzgraf said in a statement.

The case is likely to fuel concern in the West about aggressive Chinese espionage.

It comes after Germany on Monday arrested three German nationals suspected of spying for China by providing access to secret maritime technology.

READ ALSO: Germany arrests three suspected of spying for China

China’s embassy in Berlin “firmly” rejected the allegations, according to Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua.

According to German media, the two cases are not connected.

In Britain on Monday, two men were charged with handing over “articles, notes, documents or information” to China between 2021 and last year.

Police named the men as Christopher Berry, 32, and Christoper Cash, 29, who previously worked at the UK parliament as a researcher.

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