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POLICE

Woman dies after crash with police car in central Berlin

An as yet unidentified woman died of her injuries on Monday after a police car collided with her vehicle in Berlin Mitte.

Woman dies after crash with police car in central Berlin
Photo: Berlin fire services

The collision happened on Grunerstraße as the woman tried to change lanes, according to police.

Police believe that the woman was trying to park in the central avenue of the street and failed to notice an approaching police vehicle, which was travelling at high speed with its siren on.

The police vehicle, which was travelling to the scene of a robbery in Potsdamer Platz, rammed into the driver’s side of her car at high speed.

A medic attempted to save the woman’s life at the scene of the accident, but she succumbed to her injuries.

Two police officers were also slightly injured in the collision and are said to have suffered a severe trauma due to the consequences of the crash.

It is still unclear how fast the police vehicle was driving, but a data recorded inside the vehicle will be able to give exact information on this when it has been analyzed. An independent analyst has been called in to evaluate the data.

The worst accident involving a police car took place not far from the scene of Monday’s crash. In 1993 a police car hit two children on the Schlossbrücke, killing them both, according to Tagesspiegel.

In 2005 a police vehicle drove through a red light with its siren on and hit a motorbike that was travelling across the junction. The motorcyclist was killed in the crash.

Tagesspiegel reports that there have previously been complaints that police drive too fast through the capital city.

POLICE

Denmark convicts man over bomb joke at airport

A Danish court on Thursday gave a two-month suspended prison sentence to a 31-year-old Swede for making a joke about a bomb at Copenhagen's airport this summer.

Denmark convicts man over bomb joke at airport

In late July, Pontus Wiklund, a handball coach who was accompanying his team to an international competition, said when asked by an airport agent that
a bag of balls he was checking in contained a bomb.

“We think you must have realised that it is more than likely that if you say the word ‘bomb’ in response to what you have in your bag, it will be perceived as a threat,” the judge told Wiklund, according to broadcaster TV2, which was present at the hearing.

The airport terminal was temporarily evacuated, and the coach arrested. He later apologised on his club’s website.

“I completely lost my judgement for a short time and made a joke about something you really shouldn’t joke about, especially in that place,” he said in a statement.

According to the public prosecutor, the fact that Wiklund was joking, as his lawyer noted, did not constitute a mitigating circumstance.

“This is not something we regard with humour in the Danish legal system,” prosecutor Christian Brynning Petersen told the court.

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