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CRIME

Suspected Russian spy pair arrested

German Federal Police have arrested a man and woman on suspicion of having spied for Russia's foreign intelligence service for over two decades, according to a Saturday news report.

Published: 22 October 2011 10:17 CEST
Suspected Russian spy pair arrested
Photo: DPA

Der Spiegel magazine said the married couple had been working undercover in Germany. Known as Heidrun and Andreas A., both suspects deny the accusations.

Police reportedly walked in on the woman while she was listening to encoded radio transmissions. A task force from the German Federal Police or Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), arrested the pair last Tuesday in Marburg and Balingen, in central Germany.

They also confiscated two Austrian passports that appeared to have been forged.

The documents stated that Andreas A. was born in Argentina, while Heidrun A.’s birthplace was listed as Peru. But inquiries made by German authorities in South America confirmed that the passport data had been falsified.

Der Spiegel said authorities believe the two alleged spies have been working in Germany since the KGB, the Soviet Union’s spy agency, was still in operation.

They started investigating the couple after the Federal Bureau of Investigation busted a Russian spy ring in the United States.

The Local/arp

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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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