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CRIME

Busker bashes passenger with trumpet

A passenger on the Berlin underground was assaulted with a brass instrument after his friend told a busking trio to be quiet on Wednesday - he ended up a few teeth short.

Published: 11 October 2012 15:22 CEST
Busker bashes passenger with trumpet
Photo: DPA

Three musicians reportedly beat up two passengers on the city’s U2 line shortly after 5pm, after one complained about the music being played by the brass and percussion ensemble, Der Tagesspiegel reported on Thursday.

After a brief argument, two of the musicians suddenly attacked the 45-year-old. When his 37-year-old friend went to defend him, the third musician hit the intervening man in the face with his trumpet.

He suffered a cut to the mouth and lost several teeth and had to be treated in hospital, while his 45-year-old friend escaped injury.

The belligerent musical trio made their escape at the next station, but police officers who had been called to the scene stopped them on a nearby street and arrested them.

The musicians are reported to be aged 20, 24 and 32, and have no fixed address in Berlin. They are to face charges of aggravated battery. The trumpet, which was broken during the incident, was confiscated as evidence.

The Local/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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