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Germany tries Syrian man over deadly stabbing that stoked migration debate

Germany tries Syrian man over deadly stabbing that stoked migration debate

Reuters27-05-2025
DUESSELDORF, Germany, May 27 (Reuters) - A Syrian man stood trial in Duesseldorf on Tuesday over a knife attack claimed by Islamic State in which three people were killed, a case that stirred debate over foreigner crime in Germany and paved the way for a crackdown on migration.
The 27-year-old defendant, identified as Issa al H, is accused of swinging his knife at a crowd of revellers at a festival in the western town of Solingen last year, stabbing several people from behind.
He faces three counts of murder and 10 counts of attempted murder, and is also charged with membership in a foreign terrorist organisation.
Issa al H admitted guilt on his first day in court, where he appeared in a blue jumpsuit with his head bowed before him, only raising his head occasionally.
"I have brought heavy guilt upon myself," he said via a statement read by his attorney.
He offered his apology to the relatives of the victims and said he was prepared to accept his punishment.
He did not comment on the allegation that he committed the crime in coordination with the Islamic State militant group.
If convicted, the defendant faces life imprisonment.
The Solingen attack raised an outcry and drew calls for tough action against foreign perpetrators of violent crime in the run-up to Germany's February election, won by the conservatives under migration hardliner Friedrich Merz.
His coalition government, which took office earlier this month, has closed Germany's borders to undocumented migrants and vowed to ramp up deportations to Syria and Afghanistan.
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On patrol with Poland's ultra-nationalist border vigilantes
On patrol with Poland's ultra-nationalist border vigilantes

Telegraph

timean hour ago

  • Telegraph

On patrol with Poland's ultra-nationalist border vigilantes

Binoculars in hand and slathered with homemade bug spray, Maly and Marius head into the wilderness, their eyes peeled for any sign of asylum seekers in the woods of north-west Poland. As they creep along the border with Germany, Maly scans the treeline while Marius checks the ground for footprints. With no migrants in sight, the pair end the patrol and return to their campsite to swap shifts with other volunteers near Stolec, a village by the Krzyz Barnima border crossing. Then a cyclist appears, and Marius gives him a friendly look. Sometimes, he says, locals come over to congratulate them for defending Europe's borders. 'Get a real job!' the cyclist shouts in Polish as he furiously rides away. Suffice to say, this was no ordinary ride-along with Polish border guards – Maly and Marius are vigilantes, the self-appointed guardians of a remote stretch of woodland on the Polish-German border that they say is so badly protected they need to do it themselves. Over the past fortnight, 'citizens' patrol' groups have sprung up across Poland as part of an escalating diplomatic spat with the German government, under which Friedrich Merz, the country's chancellor, is turning away asylum seekers from its land borders. The decision has caused outrage among Polish Right-wingers and some border communities, who claim that their side of the frontier risks becoming a dumping ground for rejected asylum seekers and illegal migrants. In an attempt to placate the vigilantes, Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, this month deployed armed border guards to all 52 crossings with Germany, including the spot where Maly and Marius conduct their patrols. But the gesture seems to have backfired – the vigilantes have now declared a David-and-Goliath style victory over the Polish government, and are vowing to keep up the patrols unless further demands are met. While the volunteers here say they are an apolitical grassroots organisation, the wider 'citizens' patrol' movement appears to be driven by the Polish hard-Right, and in particular Robert Bakiewicz, a nationalist activist. Since the patrols started, Mr Bakiewicz and other Right-wing activists have flooded the internet with viral videos, which purportedly show German police vans secretly dropping off unwanted migrants on the Polish side of the border. In an interview with The Telegraph, Mr Bakiewicz accused the German government of waging 'hybrid warfare' on Poland by pushing back asylum seekers, echoing the West's term for Russian sabotage attacks on Nato allies. 'As you know, the Russians have been trying to destabilise the situation by pushing migrants from the east,' he said, referring to the influx of migrants from Belarus, and more recently, Belarus via Lithuania. 'Now the Germans are doing the same to us, and because our government is Germany-friendly, they allow it to happen.' Mr Bakiewicz claimed Germany's actions were rooted in jealousy of Poland's vast economic success over the past few decades. 'Poland is getting stronger and stronger, and this is their way of making Poland weaker,' he said. Germany denies that its new border policies are unlawful. Some vigilantes believe they have managed to stop German border forces from sending asylum seekers back to Poland. 'We've seen German police vans with tinted windows coming to the border, most likely full of asylum seekers,' says one 51-year-old patrol member, also named Marius, who works as a welder in the Stolec area. 'When they saw us, the car turned around. In my opinion, we scared them away.' Patricia, 45, another volunteer who patrols the forests surrounding Stolec, adds: 'We consider it a success because we forced the government to do something. But the government has only sent the guards here for 30 days, and we are afraid after that the roads will be empty. So we still patrol. We want the controls to be permanent.' In May, Mr Merz ordered his border guards to turn back asylum seekers under pressure from the far-Right, anti-migrant Alternative for Germany party, which came second in last February's elections and is now the de facto opposition. The chancellor has also faced public anger over a string of recent terror attacks in Germany committed by asylum seekers facing deportation orders. Some vigilantes say this is a key part of their motivation – they fear that Germany is pushing mentally ill or extremist asylum seekers onto their side of the border, who may then commit similar atrocities. Back at the border near Stolec, Maly and Marius have allowed The Telegraph to join them for another sortie on the condition that their faces and surnames are not published. While they insist they are not breaking the law, the Polish government has threatened to prosecute anyone suspected of impersonating border guards or hindering their work. During that patrol, the pair once again found no migrants, though they did lead The Telegraph to a clearing where soiled clothing was strewn on the ground. 'We think maybe this was a meeting point with smugglers where they changed their clothes and left,' says Maly. 'But we are not sure if they were coming into Poland or going to Germany.' Standing at the patrol's makeshift headquarters, a green gazebo full of high-viz jackets, coffee mugs and water bottles, next to a border checkpoint manned by Polish soldiers with assault rifles, Marius later says: 'We get on well with the border guards, there is no hostility.' The vigilantes' presence seems to be tolerated by two young border guards on the crossing, perhaps because they are too busy flagging down drivers to check their passports and inspect their car boots. Many of the drivers seem far from happy about the checks, which have been imposed mainly to appease the vigilante border patrols. 'I've always felt strongly about security at the border,' says Marius, 'but many Polish people are hostile to us. The country is very divided, and they are not thinking about the well-being of Poland – they are thinking about ideology.' As the end of the week draws near, more vigilantes turn up at the checkpoint, hoping to join in. Among them is Maksymilian Katarzynski, a teenager who has dressed up in tactical-style fatigues with the Polish flag on the epaulettes. Viewed from a distance, he could easily be mistaken for a Polish border guard, and that seems to be the idea. But the 19-year-old says he is not worried about the legal consequences because he is acting out of patriotism. 'If we see any illegal persons, we will apprehend them and take them to border control,' he says, as he sets up a tent near the border checkpoint with a 'no illegal immigration' banner. 'I'm here as a duty to my society.' While there is no doubt that asylum seekers are active on the German-Polish border, official statistics suggest the numbers are low compared to other migration routes in Europe. In mid-May, when the new German border rules were introduced, the total number of people requesting asylum at Germany's nine land borders was recorded as between two and 13 per day, peaking on May 17. In total, 105 asylum seekers were rejected from Germany's land borders during that period, with only 28 of those rejections taking place at the Polish-German border. By comparison, as many as 1,100 migrants have been known to cross the English Channel on small boats in a single day. Critics of the vigilantes say this means they are over-reacting to the problems at the border, and that their work potentially risks benefiting their arch-foe Russia, which revels in spreading disinformation across Europe, particularly around migration. The flood of public anger about poor border security has also been a huge benefit to Poland's Right-wing opposition party, Law and Justice (PiS). Last month, Karol Nawrocki, the party's preferred candidate in the Polish presidential elections, swept to victory and has since become one of the border patrollers' most vocal cheerleaders. Once he is sworn in as president next month, Mr Nawrocki will be able to veto key legislation by Mr Tusk's government, which has the potential to collapse his centrist coalition. Rumours abound in Warsaw that encouraging anger towards the Tusk government in the border regions could also be part of PiS's strategy.

A steakhouse heir, Israeli spies and a cross-border abduction: the custody battle gripping Germany
A steakhouse heir, Israeli spies and a cross-border abduction: the custody battle gripping Germany

The Guardian

time2 hours ago

  • The Guardian

A steakhouse heir, Israeli spies and a cross-border abduction: the custody battle gripping Germany

For over half a century Block House has ranked as one of the most recognised restaurant chains on the German high street – a collection of family-friendly steakhouses whose staples include the 'classic Block burger' and filet mignon. But for months the Hamburg-based chain has been making headlines for an altogether different reason: a bitter and extraordinary custody battle between the heiress to the family business, Christina Block, and her ex-husband over the youngest two of their four children. Among those accused of being involved are Israeli spies, as well as the former head of Germany's domestic intelligence service. Now the row, which had until now largely played out in lawyers' offices and – unusually for Germany, where there are strict privacy laws – in the country's tabloid press, has reached a Hamburg court room. Amid a blaze of publicity, Block is standing trial in the northern port city's regional court, accused of aggravated child abduction, grievous bodily harm, and unlawful detention. More precisely, and at the heart of the case, is the allegation that she contracted a global security firm to carry out the violent, cross-border kidnapping of her two youngest children. If convicted she faces up to 10 years behind bars. In the dock with her is the former TV sports journalist Gerhard Delling, one of Germany's most well-known football presenters and Block's romantic partner since 2021. He is accused of aiding and abetting her in the alleged abduction operation. The case is being heard in a high-security court room usually reserved for terrorist trials, owing to the nature of those on trial, who include alleged former Israeli intelligence agents. According to the charges, Block is alleged to have contracted a group to ambush her ex-husband, Stephan Hensel, and their two youngest children, then 10 and 13, while they were watching a fireworks display as part of new year 2023-24 celebrations at Hensel's home in southern Denmark, close to the German border. The men allegedly knocked Hensel down, before dragging his son and daughter into a forest, across a stream and into a car. The children had their mouths taped and one was tied up. They were allegedly threatened with death, with one man telling them: 'Be quiet, otherwise we'll kill you.' Danish police with sniffer dogs were quickly dispatched on the tail of the kidnappers, due to an alarm that had been attached to the boy by his father. The children were taken to a farmhouse in Baden-Württemberg, southern Germany and held in a mobile home until Block arrived to pick them up on 2 January 2024 and took them back to her Hamburg villa. They were subsequently handed over to police and taken back to Denmark days later. Both Block and Delling – who is accused of helping to organise the handover and the transport of the children to Hamburg – deny the charges. Among several alleged accomplices are August Hanning, a former head of Germany's federal intelligence service, the BND, who according to prosecutors forged the initial contact between Block and the Israeli spy firm believed to have carried out the abduction. Hanning, who has spoken in public in defence of Block, denies any involvement in the abduction. Block has said the security firm acted of its own accord, and that her mother, who died about nine months before the abduction, paid for the operation which is thought to have cost hundreds of thousands of euros and to have been months in the planning. Sign up to This is Europe The most pressing stories and debates for Europeans – from identity to economics to the environment after newsletter promotion Block is also accused of contracting the same firm to plant bogus child sexual abuse images on Hensel's property in an attempt to frame him as a child abuser. She also denies this charge. Block's defence team is expected to argue on her behalf that she had become desperate after her children were wrongfully kept by their father in Denmark when he refused to return them as agreed after a pre-arranged visit in 2021. Her lawyers say she had been granted sole custody of them, but Hensel had disregarded the German ruling. German police had taken the children back to Denmark after their abduction, at the request of Danish police. Danish authorities have refused to accept the German custody order. German media have widely reported that the same authorities have said the children do not want to have any contact with their mother. Block's lawyers have said that she was looking forward to her day in court to be able to defend herself against claims by her ex-husband that she is a danger to her children. Hensel has been granted custody of the two children by a Danish court, a decision that Block has tried but failed to get German courts to quash. They now live with their father in Denmark at a secret address. All are said to have changed their names. The high-profile court case is expected to continue until Christmas and to hear from 141 witnesses and 22 experts. During the two days it has sat so far, Block and Hensel sat just metres apart but neither looked at nor spoke to each other. Their daughter, now 14, has said she wants to speak in court. However, the case was adjourned earlier this week and is not due to resume until 25 July, after concerns were expressed over whether the children should be allowed to give evidence, in particular as their father faces separate legal proceedings for failing to abide by the German custody ruling and the evidence in both cases might clash. The founder and patriarch of the Block House business, Eugen Block, 83, who wishes diners 'much joie de vivre and pleasure' in the menus at his eateries, has said he had not seen his grandchildren at the heart of the row for several years. The custody battle had caused him 'much heartache', he told the Hamburger Abendblatt.

Man calling himself 'climate change messiah' charged after plane hijacking which saw fighter jets scrambled
Man calling himself 'climate change messiah' charged after plane hijacking which saw fighter jets scrambled

Daily Mail​

time4 hours ago

  • Daily Mail​

Man calling himself 'climate change messiah' charged after plane hijacking which saw fighter jets scrambled

A Canadian man who called himself the messiah of climate change allegedly hijacked a small plane at the Vancouver airport. Shaheer Cassim, 39, has been charged with hijacking, constituting terrorism, over the Tuesday incident, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He seized control of a Cessna at Victoria International Airport on Vancouver Island by threatening a flight instructor and then flew the aircraft about 40 miles. 'We have an incident right above our airspace here — a hijacked 172,' an official said in a recording of air traffic control reported by the Vancouver Sun. The hijacking caused the North American Aerospace Defense Command to scramble F-15 fighter jets before the plane safely landed. Footage showed several police vehicles and armed officers surrounding the small white plane on the runway in Vancouver. 'Investigators have determined the suspect acted with an ideological motive to disrupt airspace,' said Sgt. Tammy Lobb. A man with the same name and who resembles Cassim posted on social media that he was a 'messenger of Allah' and a 'Messiah' sent to save humanity from climate change. He seized control of a Cessna at Victoria International Airport on Vancouver Island by threatening a flight instructor then flew about 40 miles He said 'the Angel Gabriel appeared before me and gave me a message from Allah.' Cassim's last post warned about 'abrupt runaway global warming' that will cause humans to go extinct within a few years. Cassim also said in the post that he is 'Sam Carana,' who runs the 'Arctic News' blog that describes itself as a place where contributors 'all share a deep concern about the way climate change is unfolding in the Arctic and the threat that this poses for the world at large.' His Facebook profile said he was employed from 2008 to 2010 by now-defunct KD Air, a small airline based on Vancouver Island. The airline's former owners, Diana and Lars Banke, told the Associated Press that Cassim was one of the smartest and best pilots they ever worked with, calling him a fast learner who was highly intelligent. Lars said Cassim left the airline after getting 'bored' and then went to medical school. He also said Cassim believed the world was coming to an end. Diana said she was 'very surprised' to hear of Cassim's charges, saying he was quite young when he worked for them and was 'like a kid.' Lars said he recalled that Cassim was somewhat interested in environmentalism, but he was unaware of any kind of religious beliefs. 'He never spoke religion with us,' Diana said. 'I'm really surprised that he would´ve done something like this.' In 2012, Cassim held a news conference before going on a cross-country bicycle ride to raise awareness for global warming. British Columbia Premier David Eby said the hijacking was a 'bizarre moment,' and the fact that it ended without a more significant disruption at the airport is a 'testament' to the skill of responders who talked the suspect down.

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