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Date-rape drugs wreck German chancellor’s summer bash

At least nine women were given a date-rape drug at an invite-only event attended by Chancellor Olaf Scholz and MPs, his Social Democratic Party (SPD) said Saturday.

Published: 9 July 2022 16:54 CEST
Updated: 10 July 2022 09:22 CEST
Date-rape drugs wreck German chancellor's summer bash
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's attended the SDP event in question last week. Photo: John MACDOUGALL/AFP

SPD co-leader Lars Klingbeil said he was “shocked” at the news.

“It makes me angry such a thing could happen at an event organised by the SPD,” he told the Die Welt daily.

He added that he hoped those responsible would be detained and investigated.

“There’s quite a lot of emotion,” a spokesperson for the SPD’s parliamentary group told AFP, confirming a report in the Berlin newspaper Tagesspiegel.

Berlin police said officers were investigating allegations of serious bodily injuries after a 21-year-old woman filed a complaint following “a political party’s summer party”.

She went for hospital tests the following day, having only consumed food and non-alcoholic drinks at the event.

“I advise all those concerned to file a complaint,” added the group’s Katja Mast on Twitter.

The spokesperson did not rule out further cases adding to the nine already declared, according to the party.

The SPD sent out an email to all those invited to the party on Wednesday night condemning a “monstrous act which we immediately declared to parliamentary police”.

About 1,000 people joined the chancellor and MPs at the SPD’s traditional summer bash ahead of the parliamentary recess.

“It was an internal event. You could only get in with an invitation,” said the spokesperson. “There’s still a lot of uncertainty, the police are investigating.”

In a statement, Berlin police said the woman who filed the complaint had no memory of the party the next day, prompting her to obtain a medical exam and file the complaint.

The woman told police she felt nauseous and dizzy during the event after consuming food and non-alcoholic beverages.

The police said they had been so far informed of four other cases.

Date-rape drugs are usually used to spike drinks or food and can leave victims confused and unable to defend themselves against assault.

For 2021, Berlin police reported 22 cases involving date-rape drugs, according to the Berliner Zeitung daily.

The true number is likely to be far higher with victims often unable to recall exactly what happened or ashamed to make a complaint.

Also, with the Covid-19 pandemic, discotheques, nightclubs and party venues were closed for much of last year in the German capital.

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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”.

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