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CRIME

Germany’s killer nurse appeals life sentence for 85 murders

Germany's most prolific serial killer in the country's post-war history has appealed his life sentence, a district court said Tuesday.

Germany's killer nurse appeals life sentence for 85 murders
Högel on trial in Oldenburg before a verdict was reached. Photo: DPA

Former nurse Niels Högel, 42, was convicted last week for killing patients chosen at random by lethal injection.

The murder spree of patients aged between 34 to 96 took place between 2000
and 2005 before he was finally caught in the act.

SEE ALSO: Missed chances: How Germany's killer nurse got away with 85 murders

“I can inform you that the defendant has now lodged an appeal,” Melanie
Bitter, a spokeswoman for the court in Oldenburg, said Tuesday without adding
further details.

Last Thursday's judgement brought the official number of victims to 91 as Högel had previously been convicted for six other murders.

Police suspect that Högel's final death toll may be more than 200.

However, it may never be known exactly how many people he killed because
many likely victims were cremated before autopsies could be performed, and
because of gaps in Högel's memory.

The court in Oldenburg had also dismissed a further 15 murder counts for
lack of evidence.

Driven by a desire to show off his skills in bringing patients back from the brink of death, Högel repeatedly gambled with the lives of vulnerable victims.

He was caught in 2005 while injecting an unprescribed medication into a patient in the north German city of Delmenhorst and sentenced in 2008 to seven years in prison for attempted murder.

A second trial followed in 2014-2015 under pressure from alleged victims' families and Högel was found guilty of murder and attempted murder of five other victims and given the maximum sentence of life.

In delivering his verdict, judge Sebastian Bührmann said Högel's crimes surpassed “human imagination”.

SEE ALSO: Germany's serial killer nurse handed life sentence for 85 murders

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POLITICS

Germany raids properties in bribery probe aimed at AfD politician

German officials said on Thursday they had raided properties as part of a bribery probe into an MP, who media say is a far-right AfD lawmaker accused of spreading Russian propaganda.

Germany raids properties in bribery probe aimed at AfD politician

The investigation targets Petr Bystron, the number-two candidate for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in next month’s European Parliament elections, Der Spiegel news outlet reported.

Police, and prosecutors in Munich, confirmed on Thursday they were conducting “a preliminary investigation against a member of the German Bundestag on the initial suspicion of bribery of elected officials and money laundering”, without giving a name.

Properties in Berlin, the southern state of Bavaria and the Spanish island of Mallorca were searched and evidence seized, they said in a statement.

About 70 police officers and 11 prosecutors were involved in the searches.

Last month, Bystron denied media reports that he was paid to spread pro-Russian views on a Moscow-financed news website, just one of several scandals that the extreme-right anti-immigration AfD is battling.

READ ALSO: How spying scandal has rocked troubled German far-right party

Bystron’s offices in the German parliament, the Bundestag, were searched after lawmakers voted to waive the immunity usually granted to MPs, his party said.

The allegations against Bystron surfaced in March when the Czech government revealed it had bust a Moscow-financed network that was using the Prague-based Voice of Europe news site to spread Russian propaganda across Europe.

Did AfD politicians receive Russian money?

Czech daily Denik N said some European politicians cooperating with the news site were paid from Russian funds, in some cases to fund their European Parliament election campaigns.

It singled out the AfD as being involved.

Denik N and Der Spiegel named Bystron and Maximilian Krah, the AfD’s top candidate for the European elections, as suspects in the case.

After the allegations emerged, Bystron said that he had “not accepted any money to advocate pro-Russian positions”.

Krah has denied receiving money for being interviewed by the site.

On Wednesday, the European Union agreed to impose a broadcast ban on the Voice of Europe, diplomats said.

The AfD’s popularity surged last year, when it capitalised on discontent in Germany at rising immigration and a weak economy, but it has dropped back in the face of recent scandals.

As well as the Russian propaganda allegations, the party has faced a Chinese spying controversy and accusations that it discussed the idea of mass deportations with extremists, prompting a wave of protests across Germany.

READ ALSO: Germany, Czech Republic accuse Russia of cyberattacks

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