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German arms dealer arrested in Austria

A German man wanted by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for supplying chemical weapons to Iran has been arrested in Austria, criminal police said on Wednesday.

Published: 30 December 2009 11:40 CET
German arms dealer arrested in Austria
Photo: DPA

The man, named only as Peter W., 67, had been on the run for 21 years after being charged in the United States with supplying Iran with 115 tons of chemicals used to produce lethal mustard gas in the late 1980s, the Austrian daily Kronen Zeitung reported.

“The arrest took place in Hall, in Tirol on December 28th,” criminal police spokesman Alexander Marakovits told news agency AFP, confirming the newspaper report.

“Peter W. travelled to Austria with a false Irish passport and was here under a false name, but investigators were still able to find him,” he added.

“He appears to have felt safe in Austria and it took him by surprise when he was arrested.” The arrest resulted from a joint operation by Austrian criminal police, local Tirol police and US authorities, Marakovits said.

W., who had travelled to Austria with his family, is currently being held in Innsbruck until the court rules whether to extradite him. It is unclear when the decision will be made.

According to Marakovits, US investigators had been tracking W. for years. He was arrested in Croatia in 1994 but the court decided there was not enough evidence to keep him and he fled to Germany.

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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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