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CRIME

Bavarian police search for murdering hitchhikers

Police in Bavaria are hunting two killers after a man called them saying he had been locked in the boot of his own car by a knife-wielding hitchhiker and an accomplice.

Published: 13 October 2008 17:41 CEST
Bavarian police search for murdering hitchhikers
Photo:DPA

By the time the hunter’s car was tracked down, he was found dead in woods near the village of Dillingen. Reports carried by AP say he had gunshot wounds to his upper body. A weapon was found with the body and a second one in the car.

The horror film style story has shocked officers who are now trying to track down the killers of the 48-year-old local man. He had called the emergency number on Sunday afternoon, saying he had been on his way home from shooting in the woods, when he stopped to pick up a hitchhiker.

The hitcher held a knife to his neck and forced him to stop at a particular spot, where a second man was waiting, the man said. The pair overpowered him and put him in the boot of the car – where he called police on his mobile phone.

A huge search was launched, but after discovering the body officers have now shifted resources to finding the killers.

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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