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Kidnappers give up body of 17-year-old victim

Police confirmed on Tuesday that the 17-year-old daughter of a Saxon businessman was found dead near Meißen after being kidnapped and held for ransom last week.

Published: 18 August 2015 16:56 CEST

Kidnappers give up body of 17-year-old victim

A photo of Anneli, who police confirmed had been found dead in a case that has shaken the country. Photo: DPA.

Two men aged 39 and 61 were arrested on Monday as suspects of the crime and faced a court hearing on Tuesday.

Anneli Marie R. went missing on Thursday evening after she was last seen going out for a bicycle ride with her dog, police said.

“All hopes and prayers have not been fulfilled,” said Dresden police chief Dieter Kroll at a press conference on Tuesday. “We express our utmost sympathy and sorrow to the family.”

Police said that two men forced the teen to get into their car on Thursday.

The kidnappers later used her cellphone to call her father, who police said was a businessman well-known in the community, and demanded a ransom of €1.2 million.

Police explained that because of the family's prominence, they believed at least one of the kidnappers knew what she looked like before the crime, from seeing her in town or looking on Facebook.

Police said the perpetrators most likely killed Anneli as a way to conceal their crime, for fear that she would be able to identify them if she were released since they had not worn masks.

Investigators said that she was probably killed as soon as Friday. When the kidnappers called the parents again on that day, the perpetrators refused to offer proof that she was still alive.

Friday was the last that the parents heard from the kidnappers.

Investigators were able on Sunday to identify one of the men, who had a criminal record, through traces of his DNA left on her bicycle discovered after she went missing.

After this finding, officers made the investigation public and the parents wrote an open letter to the kidnappers.

Officers said they also used cell phone-tracking to locate one of the men in Dresden. The second man was arrested in Bamberg, Bavaria. One of the suspects ultimately told investigators the location of her body.

Anneli's cause of death has still not been determined, pending a forensics investigation.

Germany, Czech Republic accuse Russia of cyberattacks

The accusations come at a time of strained relations between Moscow and the West following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the European Union’s support for Kyiv.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said a newly concluded government investigation found that a cyberattack targeting members of the Social Democratic Party had been carried out by a group known as APT28.

APT28 “is steered by the military intelligence service of Russia”, Baerbock told reporters during a visit to Australia.

“In other words, it was a state-sponsored Russian cyberattack on Germany and this is absolutely intolerable and unacceptable and will have consequences.”

APT28, also known as Fancy Bear, has been accused of dozens of cyberattacks in countries around the world. Russia denies being behind such actions.

The hacking attack on German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s SPD party was made public last year. Hackers exploited a previously unknown vulnerability in Microsoft Outlook to compromise e-mail accounts, according to Berlin.

Berlin on Friday summoned the acting charge d’affaires of the Russian embassy over the incident.

The Russian embassy in Germany said its envoy “categorically rejected the accusations that Russian state structures were involved in the given incident… as unsubstantiated and groundless”.

Arms, aerospace targeted: Berlin

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said the cyber campaign was orchestrated by Russia’s military intelligence service GRU and began in 2022. It also targeted German companies in the armaments and aerospace sectors, she said.

Such cyberattacks are “a threat to our democracy, national security and our free societies”, she told a joint news conference in Prague with her Czech counterpart Vit Rakusan.

“We are calling on Russia again to stop these activities,” Faeser added.

Czech government officials said some of its state institutions had also been the target of cyberattacks blamed on APT28, again by exploiting a weakness in Microsoft Outlook in 2023.

Czech Interior Minister Rakusan said his country’s infrastructure had recently experienced “higher dozens” of such attacks.

“The Czech Republic is a target. In the long term, it has been perceived by the Russian Federation as an enemy state,” he told reporters.

EU, NATO condemnation

The German and Czech findings triggered strong condemnation from the European Union.

“The malicious cyber campaign shows Russia’s continuous pattern of irresponsible behaviour in cyberspace, by targeting democratic institutions, government entities and critical infrastructure providers across the European Union and beyond,” EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said.

The EU would “make use of the full spectrum of measures to prevent, deter and respond to Russia’s malicious behaviour in cyberspace”, he added.

State institutions, agencies and entities in other member states including in Poland, Lithuania, Slovakia and Sweden had been targeted by APT28 in the past, the statement added.

The latest accusations come a day after NATO expressed “deep concern” over Russia’s “hybrid actions” including disinformation, sabotage and cyber interference.

The row also comes as millions of Europeans prepare to go to the polls for the European Parliament elections in June, and concerns about foreign meddling are running high.

Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky told AFP that “pointing a finger publicly at a specific attacker is an important tool to protect national interests”.

One of the most high-profile incidents so far blamed on Fancy Bear was a cyberattack in 2015 that paralysed the computer network of the German lower house of parliament, the Bundestag. It forced the entire institution offline for days while it was fixed.

In 2020, the EU imposed sanctions on individuals and entities linked to the APT28 group over the incident.

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