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CRIME

Berlin bans Hells Angels, raid details leaked

More than 500 police officers raided the Berlin city’s Hells Angels chapter early on Wednesday morning – in a hurried operation after police sources tipped off the gang.

Published: 30 May 2012 09:37 CEST
Berlin bans Hells Angels, raid details leaked
Photo: DPA

The Berlin state parliament banned the “Berlin City” chapter of the gang on Tuesday evening on the grounds that members were suspected of violent crimes as well as weapons and drugs offences.

The initial plan was to carry out raids during the day on Wednesday, but this had to be pulled forward after an informer tipped off gang members, and the police moved in to hand over the official banning notice on Tuesday night.

“Unfortunately we have to assume that people from our own ranks gave information to these criminals in return for money,” a police spokesman said, adding that the betrayal was shameful for the police force.

The city’s police say there are more than 1,000 biker-gang members in Berlin, of whom more than 400 belong to the Bandidos. The Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper said just over 200 Hells Angels members are known to the authorities.

Rivalry between the two gangs can often be deadly and is usually over turf disagreements concerning prostitution and drugs business – but it was reported on Wednesday that many members end up changing sides, sometimes for very pragmatic reasons.

Der Spiegel news magazine said in its online edition that the Bandidos “Southside” gang had disbanded itself ahead of an anticipated official ban, and many of the members had switched to the Hells Angels in Potsdam. They had re-registered their motorbikes and hidden some, the magazine reported.

The Berliner Morgenpost online edition even said that the Berlin Hells Angels chapter had officially disbanded in order to avoid a possible ban.

A member of the Bandidos was on Tuesday shot to death in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia in what police believe could have been an attack by the Hells Angels.

Police carried out large-scale raids on biker gangs in northern Germany last week and police are now hunting for the body of a man they fear has been cemented into the floor of a warehouse.

DPA/DAPD/The Local/jcw

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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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