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CRIME

Man faces court for blackmail of SAP founder

A man accused of trying to blackmail billionaire Dietmar Hopp for more than €5 million will face court this week, after a classic Hollywood-style sting conducted in top secret.

Published: 6 December 2009 09:52 CET
Man faces court for blackmail of SAP founder
Target Hopp Photo: DPA

The 43-year-old man, who runs a driving firm, is said to have sent threatening letters to the billionaire co-founder of software giant SAP since August.

Although details have until now been kept strictly under wraps, the letters were obviously taken seriously enough for the police to be notified. Nothing was made public on the case until the man had already been arrested.

This followed an agreement reached about paying him, and an undercover detective handing over a case of fake money at a meeting to which the alleged blackmailer showed up in one of his lorries.

A few days later when police raided his house in Heilbronn in early September, they found the fake money there, according to the case against him.

He was arrested and has been in police custody ever since.

Hopp, who earned his fortune from SAP, has invested heavily in the biotech industry involved in the search for cancer treatments, as well as his home town football team 1899 Hoffenheim.

Hopp has not commented on the case, and is not expected to be called as a witness in the trial which starts on Tuesday in the Heidelberg District Court. A verdict is expected on Wednesday.

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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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