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CRIME

Mentally-ill man ‘starved to death’ by family

A mentally-disturbed man has apparently been starved to death by his family in their home in the central German town of Salzgitter.

Published: 21 February 2012 08:45 CET
Mentally-ill man 'starved to death' by family
Photo: DPA

The 54-year-old’s body was discovered last Thursday. “The room where he lived was completely neglected,” a police spokesman said.

“The autopsy on Friday showed that the man starved to death,” Klaus Ziehe, spokesman for the Braunschweig state prosecutor, told the Salzgitter Zeitung newspaper on Monday.

The man lived with his mother in an apartment block. A spokesman for the town authorities said he was in need of care, and that his brother had been named his custodian.

Police said that both the mother and the brother have been detained and charged with manslaughter by neglect.

Ziehe said there was no indication yet that he had been starved deliberately. “The situation indicates clearly that the care went out of control,” he said. “If you haven’t seen it yourself, you can’t see how that could be possible.”

The Local/DAPD/bk

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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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