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CRIME

Mafiosi tied to Duisburg massacre out of prison

Three mafia members connected to a notorious shooting in Duisburg have been released from prison in Italy due to a technicality and a fourth man has escaped while receiving treatment at a hospital, according to reports.

Published: 9 November 2011 09:20 CET
Mafiosi tied to Duisburg massacre out of prison
Photo: DPA

German public broadcaster ARD network reported Tuesday evening that a judge failed to produce a written document related to the three men’s convictions within a prescribed time period meaning they had to be released according to Italian law.

The fourth man was sentenced to 13 years in prison for helping organise the 2006 murder of Maria Strangio, the wife of a mafia member. The man had been placed under house arrest due to poor health but escaped during a hospital stay, ARD said.

Strangio’s murder is said to have provoked the 2007 killing of six mafia members outside a Duisburg pizzeria. The shooting shocked Germany and led to a cooperative police action with Italy to root out organized crime in the region.

Although it is not clear how the three released prisoners were involved in the killings, police said they were not the main organisers, who remain imprisoned.

Giovanni Strangio, a relative of Maria who is said to have been one of the primary masterminds of the massacre, was sentenced to life in prison this year.

The Federal Office of Criminal Investigation (BKA) said it could not rule out that the men could return to Germany, where they have lived before.

If that happens, Germany could once again be a centre of mafia clashes, ARD reported.

DAPD/The Local/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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