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CRIME

Police conduct massive child porn investigation

Law enforcement agencies in Bonn are investigating 563 cases of suspected online child pornography across Germany, daily Bild reported on Tuesday.

Published: 18 November 2008 08:31 CET

The Bonn public prosecutor’s office searched the homes of 518 suspects, the paper said, making the operation one the country’s largest ever operations against illegal child pornography.

“In 466 cases, considerable quantities of child pornography materials were confiscated,” spokesperson Jan van Rossum told the paper.

Investigations in “Operation Data” include doctors, priests, and football coaches across the country. One priest allegedly used a rectory computer to log in to a child pornography site. He has been suspended from his duties after authorities secured photos and films as evidence.

So far the Bonn authorities have compiled a 180-page list of alleged child pornography buyers that includes their credit card data and addresses, Bild reported.

At the minimum, many of the suspects will have to pay fines starting at €4,500 for possession of the illegal media if convicted.

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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