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CRIME

Thousands of crimes against refugees recorded in 2016: report

Media reports on Thursday showed that more than 3,000 crimes were committed against refugees or their homes last year.

Published: 3 February 2017 12:19 CET
Thousands of crimes against refugees recorded in 2016: report
Graffiti reading "no asylum" in Freital, Saxony where a group will soon go on trial for crimes against refugee homes.

A preliminary report by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) shows 970 crimes committed against asylum homes in 2016, according to reports by broadcaster NDR, the Süddeutsche Zeitung and news agency EPD on Thursday.

States reported another 2,396 crimes against refugees outside of homes last year, according to EPD.

The number of crimes against asylum homes was a drop from 2015 at the height of the influx of refugees arriving in the country, when 1,031 such crimes were reported. Both numbers were roughly five times higher than the crimes recorded in 2014 – 199.

But officials had not separately recorded crimes against refugees outside of shelters before, thus there is no available comparison for the figure of close to 2,400 incidents.

While overall crime decreased at refugee centres, the incidents reported seemed to increase in violence. The number of assaults reported rose to 78 last year from 60 in 2015, and the number of cases that involved guns almost doubled, from 31 in 2015 to 57 last year.

Still, the number of arson attacks did drop, though the media reports did not specify online by how much. Outside of refugee homes, there were nearly 400 cases of assault.

Last week German police launched raids across the country in an investigation into a right-wing extremist terror group that was believed to be plotting attacks on asylum seekers, Jews and police. Two men were arrested, one of whom had been identified as part of the so-called Reichsbürger movement – people who do not recognize the legitimacy of the German government.

“Our nation has shown that it can defend itself – and have a sharp eye toward – right-wing extremism, right-wing violence and right-wing hatred,” said Baden-Württemberg interior minister Thomas Strobl at the time.

Meanwhile the trial of eight members of a suspected right-wing terrorist group in Freital is set to begin in March in Dresden. The seven men and one woman are accused of committing at least five xenophobic or politically motivated attacks against refugee homes or political opponents, and face charges of forming a terrorist group, attempted murder, causing explosions and grievous bodily harm.

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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