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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
/ | |
Teen hands himself into police after attack on German politician | |
By Stephanie Halasz, CNN | |
Updated: | |
10:46 AM EDT, Sun May 5, 2024 | |
Source: CNN | |
A 17-year-old boy handed himself in to police after admitting that he | |
attacked a German politician on Friday. | |
Police say that Matthias Ecke, the candidate for the Social Democratic | |
Party of Germany (SPD) in the upcoming European elections, was attacked | |
when putting up campaign posters. | |
According to Saxony Police, the minor went to a police station in the | |
early hours of Sunday morning and confessed to attacking the SPD | |
politician in the east German city of Dresden. | |
A further three people are also suspected of carrying out the attack | |
alongside the minor, police said, though their whereabouts are unknown. | |
A second campaigner – for the Greens Party – was also attacked by | |
the group of four, police said earlier on X. | |
The SPD Saxony branch blamed the far-right party Alternative for | |
Germany (AfD) for the violence. AfD has been steadily gaining support | |
across the country, especially in Eastern States like Saxony. | |
“Yesterday our top candidate for the European elections Matthias Ecke | |
was attacked while he was installing posters and seriously injured. | |
Violence and intimidation of democrats are the means of fascists. The | |
seeds sown by the AfD and other right-wing extremists are sprouting,” | |
SPD Saxony said on X Saturday. | |
Jörg Urban, party leader of the AfD in Saxony, referenced the attack | |
in a post on X, writing that “attacks on politicians are always | |
attacks on democracy.” | |
While Urban said that he condemns such attacks, he also suggested that | |
“the SPD must ask itself to what extent its constant agitation | |
against political dissidents contributes to such escalations.” | |
Olaf Scholz, the Chancellor of Germany, also posted to social media | |
about the attack, writing on X: “Attacks such as the one on MEP | |
Matthias Ecke and other candidates threaten our democracy. We must | |
stand together against them.” | |
“I wish Matthias Ecke a speedy recovery,” Scholz said. | |
Ecke, who is 41 years old, had to undergo emergency facial surgery, | |
according to CNN’s affiliate ntv. | |
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