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CRIME

Man stands trial for poisoning baby daughter

A zookeeper is on trial in Potsdam accused of attempting to murder his 8-month-old daughter, feeding her poison until her condition was so severe she fell into a coma.

Man stands trial for poisoning baby daughter
The accused in court on Tuesday. Photo: DPA

Prosecutors say the 36-year-old man, originally from Schleswig-Holstein, administered the disinfectants and cleaning products containing citric acid to his daughter over a period of weeks because she was getting in the way of a new relationship.

The Potsdamer Neueste Nachrichten reports that the slow-motion murder attempt began on March 14 2014 and continued over a period of three months.

"I love my children," the accused said in court on Tuesday. "I know that I could never do anything to my daughter".

He appeared to be attempting to shift blame to his former partner, the girl's mother, saying that she never wanted to have a second child.

"Our relationship suffered" from her unhappiness after the birth, he said.

After the child stopped putting on weight and ceased to grow, she was taken to hospital in March 2014.

Prosecutors argue that after her admission, the man continued to try and poison her by using disinfectant, even as she lay in a coma,

Doctors noticed that the baby's condition always worsened when her parents came to visit.

He is accused of administering the chemicals on at least 12 separate occasions.

In statements to the court, the prosecution described the child, now 20 months old, as having made a good recovery.

"She is now very alert," said barrister Manuela Krahl-Röhnisch.

The child now lives with her mother, who has since split from the father, in the vicinity of Hamburg, along with another of the former couple's children.

At first the child was put in care after prosecutors suspected the mother. Doctors assumed it to be a case of Munchausen by proxy syndrome, in which parents deliberately harm their children, or invent illnesses for them, in order to attract sympathy.

The trial, which began on Thursday, continues until July 9th.

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CRIME

German police swoop on gang of foreign dating scammers

German police said Wednesday they had arrested 11 suspected members of a Nigerian mafia group behind a large-scale dating scam.

German police swoop on gang of foreign dating scammers

The Black Axe gang was involved internationally in “multiple areas of criminal activity”, with a focus in Germany on romance scams and money-laundering, Bavarian police said in a statement.

The dating trick was a “modern form of marriage fraud”, police said.

“Using false identities, the fraudsters for example signalled their intention to marry and in the course of further contact repeatedly demand money under various pretexts,” police said.

The money was subsequently transferred to Black Axe in Nigeria “via financial agents”, authorities said.

In the process, the gang used a “commodity-based money laundering” scheme where products, often with a seeming “charitable purpose” were bought and delivered to Nigeria.

Some 450 cases of romance scamming had been reported in the region of Bavaria in 2023 alone, with the damages rising to 5.3 million euros ($5.7 million), police said.

The suspects, who all held Nigerian citizenship and were aged between 29 and 53, were arrested in nationwide raids on Tuesday.

Law enforcement swooped on 19 properties, including both homes and asylum shelters, police said.

The Black Axe gang had “strict hierarchical structures under leadership in Nigeria” operating different territorial units, police said.

The group had a “significant influence” on politics and public administrations, in particular in Nigeria.

Globally, the gang’s main areas of operation were “human-trafficking, fraud, money-laundering, prostitution and drug-trafficking”.

Black Axe operated under the cover of the Neo Black Movement of Africa, an ostensibly charitable organisation used as “camouflage” for the gang’s structures.

The action against Black Axe was the first of its kind in Germany, police said.

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