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CRIME

Woman in coma after man drags her behind car on rope

A man has been detained by police in northern Germany after he tied a rope around a young woman’s neck and dragged her down the street behind his car.

Published: 21 November 2016 09:08 CET
Updated: 21 November 2016 13:55 CET
Woman in coma after man drags her behind car on rope
Photo: DPA
The small town of Hameln in Lower Saxony has been left in a state of shock after the crime, which occurred on Sunday evening.
 
“The brutality and contempt with which this crime was carried out is horrifying. Everyone in the town is shocked,” said town spokesperson Thomas Wahmes.
 
The exact motive for why the 38-year-old man tied a finger-thick length of rope around the woman's neck before tying her to the tow-bar of his car and dragging her 250 metres along asphalt and cobbled roads, remains unclear.
 
“But we suspect that relationship problems were behind the crime,” said police spokesperson Jens Petersen.
 
Police say that the woman was only freed from her torment when the rope came loose.
 
“It is still unclear whether the rope broke or whether it came loose from the tow-bar,” said Petersen.
 
The 28-year-old woman was found lying on the pavement by passersby, among them a police officer on his way into work. 
 
After receiving emergency care, the young woman was taken to hospital in Hanover by helicopter but  remained in a coma on Monday morning, with doctors describing her condition as life threatening.
The man, who is from the nearby town of Bad Münder, later handed himself into police and admitted to the crime.
 
He did not however give a statement that would clear up the motive.
 
Both the assailant and the victim are German citizens of Kurdish heritage and belong to two larger families.
 
Fearing possible retribution, police have taken special precautions to protect the assailant’s family. As of Monday no such act of retribution had occurred.
 
Now the town of Hameln is trying to come to terms with the brutal crime.
 
“It is hard to believe that such an act of violence took place here, just a few streets away from the town hall,” said town spokesperson Wahmes.

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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