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German police widen nursery ‘murder’ probe as other cases emerge

German police investigating the death of a child at a kindergarten said Thursday they were widening a probe against a teacher after similar near-fatal incidents were uncovered at her previous workplaces.

German police widen nursery 'murder' probe as other cases emerge
A stone with the words 'you are always in our hearts' outside the Kita in Viersen. Photo: DPA

A 25-year-old teacher at the kindergarten in the western town of Viersen near Düsseldorf in North Rhine-Westphalia was arrested on suspicion of murder after three-year-old Greta died from respiratory failure on May 4th.

Lead investigator Guido Rosskamp said the probe into three other kindergartens where the 25-year-old had worked found “to their horror that there were similar incidents” at each of the facilities.

Asked about the suspect, her previous employers or colleagues have wondered “why such a person who lacks empathy with children would want to take on such a job,” added the investigator.

A first assault may have been committed in November 2017 against a three-year-old boy, said investigators.

The suspect had informed her colleagues then that there was something wrong with the child.

In that case and other incidents, the children were found unconscious, with first-aid workers reporting that their eyes were already rolled upwards, investigators said.

Separately, criminal police had also had the suspect on their file as she had in May 2019 falsely accused a man of inflicting cuts on her face with a knife.

A forensic specialist had found subsequently that the suspect was responsible for the injuries, leading the authorities to recommend psychiatric help for her.

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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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