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CRIME

Dortmund woman dies after neighbour ‘deliberately blows up building’

A man was arrested at the weekend on suspicion of murder for blowing up the terraced house that he lives in. The blast left the house destroyed with one woman dead.

Published: 3 April 2017 15:32 CEST
Dortmund woman dies after neighbour 'deliberately blows up building'
Photo: DPA

Reporters saw the man walking out of the destroyed house in his underpants saying “I told you so”, according to mass-market tabloid Bild. He is being investigated for murder and three counts of attempted murder. 

One woman, Karin E. (36), died in the blast, which is thought to have been caused by gas. Firemen retrieved her body from the rubble on Saturday. Three others are still injured, according to RuhrNachrichten.de.

Although the 48-year-old suspect was able to walk out of the house, lawyer Sandra Lücke, said on Sunday that “the accused is currently in an urgent, life-threatening situation.”

The police were often called to the house, as neighbours complained about the suspect's behaviour in the flat. 

There were often arguments in the house according to residents.

“Sometimes he threatened our children with a wooden sword. At other times he sent murder threats out of the blue, or said that he would blow up the house. Police were often there because he was either running riot or causing unbearable noise,” one neighbour told Bild.

Early on Friday morning, the police were called to the man’s flat because of raucous behaviour. He refused to open the door for them, and so they said they would return to the flat with a locksmith to force their way in if he didn’t quieten down. A few hours later, the house exploded. 

The man is said to have been mentally ill, and his mother supposedly often visited him to help him around the house. He was also reportedly under supervision for his condition. 

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On February 21st of this year he was taken into psychiatric care, but was released in the middle of March. 

The explosion took place on Friday morning, and ripped a large hole in the family apartment building. It destroyed the attic and both of the two upper floors of the building in the district of Hörde.

Tonnes of debris was thrown onto the street, but no pedestrians were injured.

The police are currently guarding the building against looters, as authorities start a clear-up of the building and street.

More news from North Rhine-Westphalia

CRIME

German far-right politician fined €13,000 for using Nazi slogan

A German court has convicted one of the country's most controversial far-right politicians, Björn Höcke, of deliberately using a banned Nazi slogan at a rally.

Published: 15 May 2024 08:43 CEST
German far-right politician fined €13,000 for using Nazi slogan

The court fined Höcke, 52, of the far-right AfD party, €13,000 for using the phrase “Alles fuer Deutschland” (“Everything for Germany”) during a 2021 campaign rally.

Once a motto of the so-called Sturmabteilung paramilitary group that played a key role in Adolf Hitler’s rise to power, the phrase is illegal in modern-day Germany, along with the Nazi salute and other slogans and symbols from that era.

The former high school history teacher claimed not to have been aware that the phrase had been used by the Nazis, telling the court he was “completely not guilty”.

Höcke said he thought the phrase was an “everyday saying”.

But prosecutors argued that Höcke used the phrase in full knowledge of its “origin and meaning”.

They had sought a six-month suspended sentence plus two years’ probation, and a payment of €10,000 to a charitable organisation.

Writing on X, formerly Twitter, after the trial, Höcke said the “ability to dissent is in jeopardy”.

“If this verdict stands, free speech will be dead in Germany,” he added.

Höcke, the leader of the AfD in Thuringia, is gunning to become Germany’s first far-right state premier when the state holds regional elections in September.

With the court ordering only a fine rather than a jail term, the verdict is not thought to threaten his candidacy at the elections.

‘AfD scandals’

The trial is one of several controversies the AfD is battling ahead of European Parliament elections in June and regional elections in the autumn in Thuringia, Brandenburg and Saxony.

Founded in 2013, the anti-Islam and anti-immigration AfD saw a surge in popularity last year – its 10th anniversary – seizing on concerns over rising migration, high inflation and a stumbling economy.

But its support has wavered since the start of 2024, as it contends with scandals including allegations that senior party members were paid to spread pro-Russian views on a Moscow-financed news website.

Considered an extremist by German intelligence services, Höcke is one of the AfD’s most controversial personalities.

He has called Berlin’s Holocaust monument a “memorial of shame” and urged a “180-degree shift” in the country’s culture of remembrance.

Höcke was convicted of using the banned slogan at an election rally in Merseburg in the state of Saxony-Anhalt in the run-up to Germany’s 2021 federal election.

READ ALSO: How worried should Germany be about the far-right AfD after mass deportation scandal?

He had also been due to stand trial on a second charge of shouting “Everything for…” and inciting the audience to reply “Germany” at an AfD meeting in Thuringia in December.

However, the court decided to separate the proceedings for the second charge, announced earlier this month, because the defence had not had enough time to prepare.

Prosecutor Benedikt Bernzen on Friday underlined the reach of Höcke’s statement, saying that a video of it had been clicked on 21,000 times on the Facebook page of AfD Sachsen-Anhalt alone.

Höcke’s defence lawyer Philip Müller argued the rally was an “insignificant campaign event” and that the offending statement was only brought to the public’s notice by the trial.

Germany’s domestic security agency has labelled the AfD in Thuringia a “confirmed” extremist organisation, along with the party’s regional branches in Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt.

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