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CRIME

Police officer investigated for punching suspect in the head

A high-ranking policeman is under investigation after colleagues reported him for allegedly attacking a suspected fraudster who was being held in the police station cells.

Published: 11 July 2009 12:38 CEST
Police officer investigated for punching suspect in the head
The David-watch police station where the incident took place Photo: DPA

The 41-year-old Hamburg officer whose name has not been released, is said to have lost control and hit a 20-year-old who had been arrested, several times on the head, according to the Hamburger Morgenpost newspaper.

The man, based at the well-known Davidwache station in central Hamburg, has been moved while the investigation is conducted.

The incident occurred on Wednesday night, the paper reported. The officer was on duty in the station when some of the 12 officers who work under him, brought in the young man having arrested him on the Reeperbahn for alleged fraud.

As the young man was being brought in, he attacked the officers, injuring one woman officer so badly she had to be taken to hospital for treatment.

When the other officers were searching him, their boss came into the room and punched him several times in the head. His deputies reported him, and the case is being looked at by the police internal investigations office.

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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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