Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

CRIME

Suspect accused of bomb attack on Dortmund football team bus faces trial in December

A German-Russian man, accused of carrying out a bomb attack on Borussia Dortmund's team bus, will go on trial on December 21st, a German court said on Friday.

Published: 10 November 2017 16:42 CET
Suspect accused of bomb attack on Dortmund football team bus faces trial in December
The Dortmund bus after the attack. Photo: DPA.

Sergej W., 28, has been charged with 28 counts of attempted murder, setting off explosions and causing serious physical injury in the assault on April 11th.

Prosecutors say he was hoping to profit from a drop in the football team's share price as a result of the attack.

The trial is expected to last until the end of March.

The suspect faces life in prison, although in Germany, parole is usually granted after 15 years.

Three explosive devices hidden in a hedge went off next to the team bus, just as it left the squad's hotel heading for a Champions League quarter-final match at home against Monaco.

The blasts shattered bus windows and Spanish international Marc Bartra, 26, broke his wrist, while a motorcycle police officer suffered inner ear damage from the blast.

Ten days after the bomb attack, the German-Russian was arrested, with prosecutors saying he was hoping to make huge amounts of money on the stock market in the wake of the attack.

The suspect had taken out options on thousands of Borussia's listed shares in advance and allegedly planned to sell them at a pre-determined level after the attack when he bet that share prices would plunge.

Investigators also suspect that the man may have been planning other attacks.

According to the indictment, quoted Monday by Spiegel Online, he searched the internet to learn more about cable car companies and their share prices.

ANTI-SEMITISM

Germany sees sharp rise in anti-Semitic acts

Anti-Semitic acts rose sharply in Germany last year, especially after war broke out between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in October, according to new figures released on Tuesday.

Published: 25 June 2024 17:03 CEST
Germany sees sharp rise in anti-Semitic acts

The Federal Association of Research and Information Centres on Anti-Semitism (RIAS) documented 4,782 anti-Semitic “incidents” in 2023 – an increase of more than 80 per cent on the previous year.

More than half of the incidents – which included threats, physical attacks and vandalism – were registered after Palestinian militant group Hamas’s unprecedented October 7th attack on Israel, RIAS said.

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency last week also published figures showing a new record in anti-Semitic crimes in 2023.

A total of 5,164 crimes were recorded during the year, the agency said, compared with 2,641 in 2022.

Anti-Semitic crimes with a “religious-ideological motivation” jumped to 492 from just 33 the previous year, with the vast majority committed after October 7.

Felix Klein, the government’s commissioner for the fight against anti-Semitism, said the RIAS figures were “absolutely catastrophic”.

The Hamas attack had acted as an “accelerant” for anti-Semitism in Germany, he told a press conference in Berlin.

“Jewish life in Germany is under greater threat than it has ever been since the Federal Republic of Germany was founded,” he said.

The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,600 people, also mostly civilians, Gaza’s health ministry said.

Islamophobic incidents also increased dramatically in Germany last year, according to a separate report published on Monday.

The CLAIM alliance against Islamophobia said it had registered 1,926 attacks on Muslims in 2023, compared with just under 900 in 2023.

These included verbal abuse, discrimination, physical violence and damage to property.

SHOW COMMENTS