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CRIME

Trial starts of men who put cement blocks on Autobahn ‘out of boredom’

Two young men went on trial on Monday on an attempted murder charge. Prosecutors allege that the men placed heavy objects on streets around Bremen with the aim of killing people.

Published: 17 September 2018 16:17 CEST
Trial starts of men who put cement blocks on Autobahn ‘out of boredom’
Photo: DPA

The men – aged 24 and 25 – would place slabs of cement, pieces of wood with nails in them or heavy chunks of brick onto the road at night, prosecutors allege. Sometimes they would place the objects on the road in the northern city, on other occasions they would place them on entry roads to the Autobahn, the Hannoversche Allgemeine reports.

Police became so concerned by the repeated incidents at one entry road to the Autobahn that they took the measure of reducing the speed limit on it after dark.

On one occasion the men placed a 30 kilogramme cement holder for a road sign on its edge directly in the middle of the road.

Prosecutors say that the crimes took place between 2015 and 2017. The most serious consequence of the reckless crimes was causing a young woman to lose control of her car and crash. Other incidents led to damage to cars.

Investigators were able to arrest the men after they found the DNA of one of them one a plank of wood with nails sticking out of it. Officers arrested the men near the place where the wood was found and were able to match the DNA sample.

A search of their homes found a shelf system from which the offending piece of wood had been cut.

The men have admitted to the crimes, saying they acted out of boredom, frustration and due to stress in their private lives.

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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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