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Trial starts of men who put cement blocks on Autobahn ‘out of boredom’

Two young men went on trial on Monday on an attempted murder charge. Prosecutors allege that the men placed heavy objects on streets around Bremen with the aim of killing people.

Published: 17 September 2018 16:17 CEST

Trial starts of men who put cement blocks on Autobahn ‘out of boredom’

Photo: DPA

The men – aged 24 and 25 – would place slabs of cement, pieces of wood with nails in them or heavy chunks of brick onto the road at night, prosecutors allege. Sometimes they would place the objects on the road in the northern city, on other occasions they would place them on entry roads to the Autobahn, the Hannoversche Allgemeine reports.

Police became so concerned by the repeated incidents at one entry road to the Autobahn that they took the measure of reducing the speed limit on it after dark.

On one occasion the men placed a 30 kilogramme cement holder for a road sign on its edge directly in the middle of the road.

Prosecutors say that the crimes took place between 2015 and 2017. The most serious consequence of the reckless crimes was causing a young woman to lose control of her car and crash. Other incidents led to damage to cars.

Investigators were able to arrest the men after they found the DNA of one of them one a plank of wood with nails sticking out of it. Officers arrested the men near the place where the wood was found and were able to match the DNA sample.

A search of their homes found a shelf system from which the offending piece of wood had been cut.

The men have admitted to the crimes, saying they acted out of boredom, frustration and due to stress in their private lives.

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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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