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CRIME

US files charges in airport shooting

US prosecutors have filed murder charges against a Kosovo Albanian man accused of shooting dead two US airmen on a bus at Frankfurt airport in Germany.

Published: 22 June 2011 06:18 CEST
US files charges in airport shooting
Photo: DPA

Arid Uka, 21, allegedly approached a bus at the airport on March 2 and asked in English if it was carrying Americans before shooting dead the driver and a passenger and wounding two other US Air Force personnel.

“As Uka fired his gun, he repeated aloud an Arabic expression that means ‘God is great,’ and continued shooting until his gun did not fire,” read a statement put out by federal prosecutors in New York.

The US complaint accused Uka of two counts of murder, one count of attempted murder, one count of using a firearm in a violent crime and a fifth count of committing a deadly act at an international civil airport.

Uka is currently detained in Germany, where he faces similar charges over what has been described as the first Islamic extremist attack on German soil.

German prosecutors believe Uka carried out the attack to avenge what he saw as atrocities by US troops in Afghanistan but have said they are not aware of links between him and terror groups.

The killings have had ramifications for American military personnel in Germany. Security was ramped up in their wake and soldiers were ordered not to wear their uniforms in public.

It was not immediately clear whether the charges filed in New York indicated that Uka could face trial in the United States.

AFP/mdm

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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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