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CRIME

Raid targets suspected Islamist fund-raisers

German police raided eight apartments and an office in the Stuttgart area on Tuesday in an operation aimed at cracking down on fund-raising for Islamic extremists abroad, although no one was arrested, authorities said.

Published: 19 July 2011 14:27 CEST
Raid targets suspected Islamist fund-raisers
Photo: DPA

The raids by around 60 police officers in Baden-Württemberg under the code name “Iron” recovered propaganda material and close to €10,000 in cash, public prosecutors in Stuttgart said.

The properties were used by six people including four said to be German citizens of Turkish origin, and two Turks aged between 42 and 51. One of them was an imam.

Police suspect them of collecting money to send abroad for terrorist purposes and to commit “seditious violence and the formation of a criminal organization.”

The Südwestrundfunk broadcaster said the main suspect was a 51-year-old who has previously been involved with a banned Islamic organization.

One of the suspects is also said to have boasted in the past that he would defend himself with weapons if police approached, which may have prompted the response by so many officers.

The Local/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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