Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

CRIME

Man confesses in Mary Jane murder, police say

Police in the Thuringian town of Suhl have announced a break in the case involving the murder of seven-year-old schoolgirl Mary Jane, after a man admitted to sexually abusing and killing the girl.

Published: 10 July 2011 10:47 CEST
Man confesses in Mary Jane murder, police say
Photo: DPA

The man, 37, was allegedly an acquaintance of the victim’s mother and had been a guest in the family’s home in 2010. Prosecutors said at a press conference late on Saturday that he lived just a few metres from the girl’s residence in Zella-Mehlis, a town near Suhl.

Identified as Tino L., the man was also on probation for narcotics and road traffic violations, according to prosecutors.

Zella-Mehlis Mayor Kai-Uwe Panse said he hoped for a speedy trial and a severe sentence for the alleged killer.

“The man has disgraced our town,” he added. “Hopefully he will be put away for a long time and will never come here again.” Panse said the man’s arrest should bring a bit of peace to Zella-Mehlis.

Mary Jane disappeared on June 24 on her way home from school. The following day, hikers found her fully-clothed body in a forest not far from the girl’s home.

The head of the special commission investigating the case, Andreas Beez, said the girl was sexually abused in the alleged killer’s apartment but died in the woods nearby.

Beez said Mary Jane sustained injuries to the neck and died after drowning in a stream.

Authorities were tipped off by local residents, who told police that they had often seen Tino L. watching children from his apartment balcony.

During their investigation of the murder, police interviewed Tino L., who voluntarily submitted a DNA sample. “Through intensive investigations since the middle of this week, we were able to determine that the alibi this person gave apparently was not true,” Beetz said.

Police said Mary Jane’s red school bag was found in the man’s apartment building.

DAPD/DPA/arp

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

CRIME

Germany arrests Syrian man accused of plotting to kill soldiers

German authorities said Friday they had arrested a 27-year-old Syrian man who allegedly planned an Islamist attack on army soldiers using two machetes in Bavaria.

Published: 13 September 2024 11:17 CEST
Germany arrests Syrian man accused of plotting to kill soldiers

The suspect, an “alleged follower of a radical Islamic ideology”, was arrested on Thursday on charges of planning “a serious act of violence endangering the state”.

The man had acquired two heavy knives “around 40 centimetres (more than one foot) in length” in recent days, prosecutors in Munich said.

He planned to “attack Bundeswehr soldiers” in the city of Hof in northern Bavaria during their lunch break, aiming “to kill as many of them as possible”, prosecutors said.

“The accused wanted to attract attention and create a feeling of insecurity among the population,” they said.

German security services have been on high alert over the threat of Islamist attacks, in particular since the Gaza war erupted on October 7th with the Hamas attacks on Israel.

Police shot dead a man in Munich this month after he opened fire on officers in what was being treated as a suspected “terrorist attack” on the Israeli consulate in Munich.

The shootout fell on the anniversary of the kidnap and killing of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games by Palestinian militants.

The 18-year-old suspect had previously been investigated by authorities in his home country Austria on suspicion of links to terrorism but the case had been dropped.

The incident capped a string of attacks in Germany, which have stirred a sense of insecurity in Germany and fed a bitter debate of immigration.

Three people were killed last month in a suspected Islamist stabbing at a festival in the western city of Solingen.

READ ALSO: ‘Ban asylum seekers’ – How Germany is reacting to Solingen attack

The suspect in the attack, which was claimed by the Islamic State group, was a Syrian man who had been slated for deportation from Germany.

A federal interior ministry spokesman said if an Islamist motive was confirmed in the latest foiled attack, it would be “further evidence of the high threat posed by Islamist terrorism in Germany, which was recently demonstrated by the serious crimes in Mannheim and the attack in Solingen, but also by acts that were fortunately prevented by the timely intervention of the security authorities”.

The Solingen stabbing followed a knife attack in the city of Mannheim in May, which left a policeman dead, and which had also been linked to Islamism by officials.

Germany has responded to the attacks by taking steps to tighten immigration controls and knife laws.

READ ALSO: Debt, migration and the far-right – the big challenges facing Germany this autumn

The government has announced new checks along all of its borders and promised to speed up deportations of migrants who have no right to stay in Germany.

The number of people considered Islamist extremists in Germany fell slightly from 27,480 in 2022 to 27,200 last year, according to a report from the federal domestic intelligence agency.

But Interior Minister Nancy Faeser warned in August that “the threat posed by Islamist terrorism remains high”.

SHOW COMMENTS