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CRIME

Look-alike prisoner gets cell-mate’s release

German authorities have launched an investigation after a prisoner swapped identities with a cell-mate who was due to be released, and simply walked out of jail.

Published: 17 May 2013 08:18 CEST
Look-alike prisoner gets cell-mate's release
Photo: DPA

The 32-year-old man was not due to be released from Dresden prison, but he looked similar to his cell-mate and got himself the same kind of haircut, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported on Friday.

“This has not happened to me in 30 years,” said prison director Ulrich Schwarzer.

He said the man, reportedly from Hungary, had been serving time for theft, but that he was about to be charged with a more serious crime of human trafficking. It is alleged he brought a 15-year-old girl with him to Germany and forced her to work as a prostitute.

It seems he talked his cell-mate into letting him take his place on release-day.

Schwarzer said the man and his cell-mate did look alike. “They do look very similar in photos,” he said.

Once he had done his hair to match his friend’s, the cunning plan was complete.

No-one noticed the deception on the day of his release, said Schwarzer. “Several prisoners were released on the same day,” he said, admitting that his officers had only a print-out of a photo to use to check his identity.

Officers collected the wrong man from his cell, handed him his cell-mates belongings, filled out the release forms and waved him off into freedom.

The Local/DPA/hc

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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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