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CRIME

Mum accused of throwing baby in bin

The mother of a baby boy found dead in a Berlin rubbish bin has been arrested and charged with manslaughter. She stands accused of suffocating the newborn and throwing the body away, police said.

Published: 2 December 2011 06:40 CET
Mum accused of throwing baby in bin
Photo: DPA

Officers had found the child on Wednesday wrapped in towels and stuffed in a garbage bag following a tip from a family doctor who had stopped by the mother’s residence to check on the status of her pregnancy.

The doctor called police after realising the woman had given birth, but couldn’t explain where the baby was.

According to prosecutors, the 24-year-old woman has given a full confession. She was previously known to authorities who had been giving her and her two small children children unspecified social help.

Although the woman has a boyfriend, he is not considered a suspect.

The killing is the latest recent case involving violence and young children in Berlin.

Last month, a 40-year-old mother was arrested after being accused of killing her baby out of a fifth floor window of an apartment building.

Another mother was recently arrested after being accused of nearly starving her young child to death.

The Local/mdm

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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