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CRIME

Frankfurt postman arrested for hoarding truckloads of letters

A Scottish postman working in Frankfurt has been arrested after he was discovered to have hoarded an estimated 20,000 letters at his parents' house where he lived, police said on Tuesday.

Published: 9 September 2008 16:20 CEST
Frankfurt postman arrested for hoarding truckloads of letters
Photo: DPA

The 23-year-old told police that for the past year he had hidden and thrown out the letters instead of delivering them because he was overwhelmed with work while taking night courses to earn his high school diploma equivalency.

A neighbour saw the man tossing letters into a bin and alerted police on Monday. The authorities searched his parents’ home and found letters ferreted away in closets, a bedframe and closets. There were so many letters that police had to use two small trucks to transport them all.

The man, who worked for a private postal company, will likely be charged with misappropriation of postal items.

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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