Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

CRIME

Overnight raids net eight jihad supporters

Eight men have been arrested after investigations against them turned up evidence that they supported terrorist organisations, including Islamic State (Isis), Cologne state prosecutors announced on Wednesday.

Published: 12 November 2014 08:45 CET
Overnight raids net eight jihad supporters
Photo: DPA

Police searched the homes of the eight that were arrested, as well as another 20 people suspected of supporting terrorist networks with counterfeit passports, as well as by sending supplies to Syria. 

The eight men arrested were all German citizens between the ages of 22 and 35.

Federal police made one other arrest in connection with the raids, a 58-year-old Pakistani man. 

Around 240 police carried out the overnight raids in Cologne and surrounding municipalities.

Police had the group under surveillance since May 2013, the Express reported Wednesday. The paper said that all those under investigation have ties to the Salafist movement.

The group allegedly broke into schools and churches, selling on stolen goods and sending the money to three jihadist networks, including Isis.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

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.

SHOW COMMENTS