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CRIME

German hostage freed in Yemen

A German contractor taken hostage in Yemen has been released, a tribal source close to the kidnappers said on Tuesday.

Published: 20 January 2009 18:47 CET
German hostage freed in Yemen
A file photo of Yemeni forces. Photo: DPA

“The kidnappers handed the German hostage over to tribal mediators an hour ago,” the source told news agency AFP. “They are now on their way to the city Ataq, capital of the eastern

province of Shabwah.”

Army and security forces said earlier on Tuesday said they had located the German oil pipeline engineer and two locals who were kidnapped in Yemen over the weekend.

The three captives were being held by armed tribesmen in a remote mountain village in the province of Shabwah, security forces said. The governer of the province, Ali Hassan al-Ahmadi, had said that he expected the prisoners to be released within the next several hours, news agency DPA reported.

Authorities believe the hostages are in good health.

The engineer, who had been working on a large gas pipeline project in the region, was abducted along with two Yemeni colleagues by tribesmen who demanded the release of an imprisoned clan member.

According to daily Bild on Tuesday, the oil expert is a 56-year-old father of three from the German state of Saxony.

The abduction reportedly took place some 30 kilometres from port city Balhaf, the final destination of the 300-kilometre pipeline the German is said to have been working on.

In December 2008 tribesmen kidnapped a German family of three, also demanding that the government release an imprisoned clan member. The family was released after five days.

Tribes in the unstable country have abducted more than 200 foreigners in the last 15 years, usually making demands of the government in return for the release of their captives.

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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