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CRIME

Neo-Nazi to face child sex abuse charges

Far-right extremist and former informant for the security services Tino Brandt will face charges of serious sexual abuse of children.

Published: 13 November 2014 16:34 CET
Neo-Nazi to face child sex abuse charges
File photo of TIno Brandt being arrested in 1995. Photo: DPA

State prosecutors in Gera, Thuringia, said that Brandt, 39, would answer 157 charges for acts that took place between 2011 and 2014.

“This means that he himself had sexual contact with children and young people,” a spokesman for the prosecutor's office said.

Brandt is accused of having supplied minors to adults for sex in exchange for money in 45 cases.

As leader of the “Thuringia Homeland Defence” group, Brandt had contact with the National Socialist Underground members Uwe Mundlos, Uwe Böhnhardt and Beate Zschäpe before they began their serial murders.

News of the charges against Brandt came just one day after his handler from the Office for Constitutional Protection (Verfassungsschutz) had given evidence at Zschäpe's trial.

Prosecutors said that there was no connection to his political opinions in the present charges.

They added that Brandt, who has been in custody since June during the investigation, had co-operated with the investigation and admitted to some of the allegations.

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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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