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OFFBEAT

Fugitive fare dodger captured on foot at Polish border

A fugitive public transportation fare dodger has been arrested while trying to enter Germany on foot from Poland, police said on Monday. He will now serve almost five months in jail for failing to pay thousands in fines.

Published: 11 October 2010 16:19 CEST
Fugitive fare dodger captured on foot at Polish border
Photo: DPA

The 26-year-old Berliner was caught in Frankfurt an der Oder, an eastern German town bordering Poland, as he tried to enter the country around 6:35 pm on Saturday, according to a statement by Berlin police.

The fare-dodger, or Schwarzfahrer in German, had been nabbed riding trains without a ticket 11 times, and was twice convicted by a Tiergarten district court, racking up fines of €3,084.

Two warrants had been issued for his arrest after he failed to pay, the report said.

Because he failed to produce the cash, on Sunday morning police delivered him to the Frankfurt an der Oder prison, where he will serve 147 days behind bars.

Most German public transportation operates on an honour system, where passengers do not need a ticket to board. Instead, plainclothes officers randomly board vehicles to carry out checks, doling out fines of some €40 or more to those caught without valid tickets.

The lack of turnstiles or other formal ticket enforcement makes fare dodging simple for those who don’t care to part with their pocket change.

The Berlin city administration offers a community service program for some of those who can’t pay the fine for fare dodging, though. Schwitzen statt sitzen, which means “sweating instead of doing time,” allows the small-time criminals to work off their fines.

But many of fare dodgers, some of whom officials say have drug and alcohol problems, opt not to pay or work off the fines, landing themselves in prison.

The VDV alliance of German transportation providers has encouraged cities to increase fines to discourage fare dodging, but last year Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel reported that the capital’s jails were already clogged with the petty criminals unable to pay their fines.

The Local/rm

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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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