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CRIME

Purported paedophile attacked in Bremen after TV report

A 50-year-old man was severely beaten at his home in northwest Germany by a mob believing they recognized him from a television programme about paedophiles, police said on Thursday.

Published: 14 June 2018 12:45 CEST
Purported paedophile attacked in Bremen after TV report
Photo: DPA

In what authorities called a case of “vigilante justice”, the assailants will face charges of attempted murder.

The incident occurred on Tuesday after a television show was aired in which reporters attempt to contact suspected paedophiles via the internet.

The programme showed a man whose behaviour was deemed by the reporters to be suspicious.

After it was aired, local viewers thought they recognized the man and his address, went to his home and beat him savagely, leaving him critically injured.

The victim's life is no longer in danger and police said they had no reason to believe that he or anyone else from his block of flats was guilty of child abuse.

No suspects have been arrested and police asked the public for tips.

“The Bremen police stress that no one has the right to take justice into their own hands,” they said in a statement.

“Vigilante justice is intolerable. It is the task of prosecutors and the police to investigate crimes.”

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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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