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CRIME

Father of dead boy arrested, admits killing son

The father of a 12-year-old boy found battered to death in Berlin last week has been arrested after confessing the killing to police, it was confirmed on Sunday.

Published: 24 April 2011 10:25 CEST
Father of dead boy arrested, admits killing son
Photo: DPA

The 34-year-old man, who left his son in a cellar, was taken into custody on Saturday evening in Düsseldorf.

Police in Berlin had released a picture of the man to help with the investigation after he went missing following the discovery of his dead son.

Officers in Düsseldorf found the man in an abandoned part of the city’s harbour where they said, “He did not behave in a situation as one would normally behave,” although they did not provide details.

He was arrested and is expected to be brought before a custody judge on Sunday afternoon.

The body of his son was found on Tuesday night after his mother reported him missing. His had failed to return from a visit to the father – his younger sister who did come home told their mother the boy and father had had a row, prompting fears for his safety.

When police went to the house in the Reinickendorf district of the city, they found blood traces which led to the cellar where they found the boy’s body.

They initially arrested the flatmate of the father but soon released him, turning their attention to the father himself who had fled.

DPA/DAPD/hc

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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