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CRIME

Cop patrolled 22 years without driver’s license

Criminal charges have been filed against a policeman in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt who allegedly drove patrol cars for more than 20 years without a proper driver's license, officials have revealed.

Published: 27 January 2012 10:37 CET
Cop patrolled 22 years without driver's license
Photo: DPA

According to the regional Volksstimme newspaper, the officer in Magdeburg apparently believed that a license allowing him to drive a tractor and motorcycle sufficed for police cars too.

The 22-year veteran was discovered while trying to renew his certification recently, the newspaper reported.

A police spokesman explained that the officer had joined the force just before the reunification of Germany in 1990.

Because most police patrols in communist East Germany were done on foot, apparently no-one ever thought to check whether he had a proper licence, even when he began driving.

“Those were pretty wild times and it must have slipped through,” police spokesman Andreas von Koß told the Volksstimme.

The officer has been reassigned to office duty while administrative and criminal investigations are underway, von Koß said.

He is also said to have driven a private vehicle without a licence.

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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