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Suspects admit to shooting woman dead in Berlin’s Neukölln district

The ex-boyfriend of a 25-year-old woman has admitted to killing her on the street in the heart of one of Berlin’s most fashionable neighbourhoods.

Published: 4 January 2019 15:32 CET

Suspects admit to shooting woman dead in Berlin’s Neukölln district

Police at the crime scene in Oderstraße on December 28th. Photo: DPA

The 29-year-old was arrested on Wednesday and admitted to the crime of shooting his former girlfriend in the head, Berlin prosecutors said.

A day later a 39-year-old accomplice was also arrested and has since admitted his involvement.

The arrests came after a 25-year-old Polish woman was found unconscious on a street in the Neukölln neighbourhood on December 27th.

The woman had been shot in the head on Oderstraße, a street adjacent to the popular Tempelhofer Feld park. A passerby found her lying in the entrance to a courtyard slightly before midnight. Emergency services rushed her to hospital where she underwent emergency surgery, but she died later in the night.

Investigators believe that the ex-boyfriend fired the fatal shot.

Neukölln is a sought after address for young expatriates working in Berlin’s creative industries. As well as hosting a large population of educated young migrants who hang out in its hip bars and cafes, Neukölln is known for organized criminality and often makes headlines as a hotspot for violent crime.

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Aide to German far-right MEP arrested on suspicion of spying for China

The man, named only as Jian G., stands accused of sharing information about negotiations at European Parliament with a Chinese intelligence service and of spying on Chinese opposition figures in Germany, federal prosecutors said in a statement.

On the website of the European Parliament, Jian Guo is listed as an accredited assistant to MEP Maximilian Krah, the far-right AfD party’s lead candidate in the forthcoming EU-wide elections.

He is a German national who has reportedly worked as an aide to Krah in Brussels since 2019.

The suspect “is an employee of a Chinese secret service”, prosecutors said.

“In January 2024, the accused repeatedly passed on information about negotiations and decisions in the European Parliament to his intelligence service client.

“He also spied on Chinese opposition members in Germany for the intelligence service.”

The suspect was arrested in the eastern German city of Dresden on Monday and his homes were searched, they added.

The accused lives in both Dresden and Brussels, according to broadcasters ARD, RBB and SWR, who broke the news about the arrest.

The AfD said the allegations were “very disturbing”.

“As we have no further information on the case, we must wait for further investigations by federal prosecutors,” party spokesman Michael Pfalzgraf said in a statement.

The case is likely to fuel concern in the West about aggressive Chinese espionage.

It comes after Germany on Monday arrested three German nationals suspected of spying for China by providing access to secret maritime technology.

READ ALSO: Germany arrests three suspected of spying for China

China’s embassy in Berlin “firmly” rejected the allegations, according to Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua.

According to German media, the two cases are not connected.

In Britain on Monday, two men were charged with handing over “articles, notes, documents or information” to China between 2021 and last year.

Police named the men as Christopher Berry, 32, and Christoper Cash, 29, who previously worked at the UK parliament as a researcher.

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