STUTTGART, Germany: Twelve alleged far-right conspirators went on trial in Germany on Tuesday, suspected of planning attacks on politicians, asylum seekers and Muslims as part of a plot to overthrow the country’s democracy.
Eleven of the men, arrested in February last year, stand accused of membership of a terrorist organization and weapons law violations. The 12th has been charged with supporting a terrorist group.
The suspects, known as Gruppe S (Group S) after one of the founders, planned to spark “a civil-war-like situation” by carrying out “attacks on politicians, asylum seekers and people of Muslim faith,” according to federal prosecutors.
The group’s eight founding members had the goal of “destabilising and ultimately overthrowing” Germany’s democratic order, they said.
Those on trial, aged 33 to 62 and all German citizens, had an “openly National Socialist attitude,” referring to the Nazi party, and made no secret of their hatred of foreigners, Muslims and Jews, according to prosecutors.
One of them is accused of using an offensive slur against black people and calling them “subhumans, so up for a massacre” in a Telegram chat group.
When talking on the phone, they are said to have used code words for weapons such as “battery” and “bicycle.”
Investigators say the two main ringleaders of the group, named only as Werner S. and Tony E., organized three meetings where members took part in discussions and shooting exercises.
The group is said to have arranged to buy weapons worth 50,000 euros ($60,000) through a handler known to one of the members, and several other weapons were found during raids when the arrests were made.
The group had links to several right-wing extremist networks and are accused of using their connections to recruit members “whom they considered to be fast, clever and brutal fighters.”
They were also planning attacks against politicians including Robert Habeck, one of the co-leaders of Germany’s Green party, according to prosecutors.
The trial in Stuttgart comes as concern grows in Germany over the rise of violent right-wing extremism.
The number of crimes committed by far-right suspects in Germany jumped to its highest level for at least four years in 2020, according to provisional police figures released in February.
Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has declared far-right extremism the “biggest security threat” facing Europe’s largest economy.
A series of high-profile attacks have also rattled the country.
In January, German neo-Nazi Stephan Ernst was sentenced to life in prison for murdering pro-migration politician Walter Luebcke.
In February 2020, a far-right extremist killed 10 people and wounded five others in the central German city of Hanau.
And in 2019, two people were killed after a neo-Nazi tried to storm a synagogue in Halle on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.
The Gruppe S trial is taking place under high security at Stammheim Prison in Stuttgart and is due to wrap up in August.
Germany opens trial of far-right ‘terrorist’ group
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Germany opens trial of far-right ‘terrorist’ group
- The suspects planned to spark ‘a civil-war-like situation’ by carrying out ‘attacks on politicians, asylum seekers and people of Muslim faith’
- Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has declared far-right extremism the ‘biggest security threat’ facing Europe’s largest economy
At least 34 dead in India’s northeast after heavy floods
- More than a thousand tourists trapped in the Himalayan state of Sikkim were being evacuated on Monday
- In neighboring Bangladesh, at least four members of a family were killed in a landslide in Sylhet district
BHUBANESWAR/DHAKA: At least 34 people have died in India’s northeastern region after heavy floods caused landslides over the last four days, authorities and media said on Monday, and the weather department predicted more heavy rain.
More than a thousand tourists trapped in the Himalayan state of Sikkim were being evacuated on Monday, a government statement said, and army rescue teams were pressed into service in Meghalaya state to rescue more than 500 people stranded in flooded areas.
In neighboring Bangladesh, at least four members of a family were killed in a landslide in the northeastern district of Sylhet, while hundreds of shelters have been opened across the hilly districts of Rangamati, Bandarban, and Khagrachhari on Sunday.
Authorities have warned of further landslides and flash floods, urging residents in vulnerable areas to remain alert.
India’s northeast and Bangladesh are prone to torrential rains that set off deadly landslides and flash floods, affecting millions of people every year.
Roads and houses in Assam’s Silchar city were flooded, visuals from news agency ANI showed, and fallen trees littered the roads.
“We are facing a lot of challenges. I have a child, their bed is submerged in water. What will we do in such a situation? We keep ourselves awake throughout the night,” Sonu Devi, a resident of Silchar, told ANI.
Bomb blast kills nine at Nigeria bus park in Borno
Borno has been the heartland of an Islamist insurgency for the past 16 years, which has killed thousands of Nigerians and driven tens of thousands from their homes.
Villagers from Mairari village in Borno’s Guzamala district were waiting for transport when a bomb detonated on Saturday, killing at least nine people, said Abdulkarim Lawan, the lawmaker for the area.
Lawan, who is also speaker of Borno state assembly, said Mairari village was now largely deserted due to frequent attacks by Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province, who are also increasingly using improvised explosives.
“Terrorists who have been monitoring their movements planted IEDs at the local bus stop, which exploded while they were waiting to board commercial vehicles back to their destinations,” he said.
Borno state police spokesperson Nahum Kenneth Daso confirmed the incident but said he had no details.
Bunu Bukar, a petty trader at the bus rank said on Monday the IED was tripped when passengers were boarding a mini bus, killing the nine instantly and injuring several others.
Nigeria has witnessed a rise in insurgent attacks since January, with militants targeting civilians and military bases.
Sweden faces call to halt international adoptions after inquiry finds abuses and fraud
- The commission called on the government to formally apologize to adoptees and their families
STOCKHOLM: A Swedish commission recommended Monday that international adoptions be stopped after an investigation found a series of abuses and fraud dating back decades.
Sweden is the latest country to examine its international adoption policies after allegations of unethical practices, particularly in South Korea,
The commission was formed in 2021 following a report by Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter detailing the Scandinavian country’s problematic international adoption system. Monday’s recommendations were sent to Minister of Social Services Camilla Waltersson Grönvall.
“The assignment was to investigate whether there had been irregularities that the Swedish actors knew about, could have done and actually did,” Anna Singer, a legal expert and the head of the commission, told a press conference. “And actors include everyone who has had anything to do with international adoption activities.
“It includes the government, the supervisory authority, organization, municipalities and courts. The conclusion is that there have been irregularities in the international adoptions to Sweden.”
The commission called on the government to formally apologize to adoptees and their families. Investigators found confirmed cases of child trafficking in every decade from the 1970s to the 2000s, including from Sri Lanka, Colombia, Poland and China.
Singer said a public apology, besides being important for those who are personally affected, can help raise awareness about the violations because there is a tendency to download the existence and significance of the abuses.
An Associated Press investigation, also documented by Frontline (PBS), last year reported dubious child-gathering practices and fraudulent paperwork involving South Korea’s foreign adoption program, which peaked in the 1970s and `80s amid huge Western demands for babies.
The AP and Frontline spoke with more than 80 adoptees in the US, Australia and Europe and examined thousands of pages of documents to reveal evidence of kidnapped or missing children ending up abroad, fabricated child origins, babies switched with one another and parents told their newborns were gravely sick or dead, only to discover decades later they’d been sent to new parents overseas.
The findings are challenging the international adoption industry, which was built on the model created in South Korea.
The Netherlands last year announced it would no longer allow its citizens to adopt from abroad. Denmark’s only international adoption agency said it was shutting down and Switzerland apologized for failing to prevent illegal adoptions. France released a scathing assessment of its own culpability.
South Korea sent around 200,000 children to the West for adoptions in the past six decades, with more than half of them placed in the US Along with France and Denmark, Sweden was a major European destination of South Korean children, adopting nearly 10,000 of them since the 1960s.
Tunisian national shot dead by neighbor in the south of France
- Last year French police recorded an 11 percent rise in racist, xenophobic or anti-religious crimes.
PARIS: A Tunisian national was shot dead by his neighbor in the south of France, the Draguignan prosecutor said in a statement, adding that the incident was being investigated as a racially-motivated crime.
The victim, who was said to be “possibly 35,” but has not been officially identified, was killed late on Saturday night in the town of Puget-sur-Argens. A 25-year-old Turkish national was also shot in the hand by the man and taken to hospital.
The incident comes one month after the fatal stabbing of Aboubakar Cisse, a 22-year-old man from Mali, in a mosque in the southern town of La Grand-Combe, amid rising racism in France.
Last year French police recorded an 11 percent rise in racist, xenophobic or anti-religious crimes, according to official data published in March.
In a statement released late on Sunday, the prosecutor said the suspect in the weekend shooting was a 53-year-old who practices sports shooting. He had published hateful and racist content on his social media account before and after killing his neighbor, the prosecutor added.
France has the largest Muslim population in Europe, numbering more than 6 million and making up about 10 percent of the country’s population.
Politicians across the political spectrum, including President Emmanuel Macron, have attacked what they describe as Islamist separatism in a way that rights groups have said stigmatizes Muslims and amounts to discrimination.
UK PM Starmer says situation in Gaza ‘getting worse by the day’
- “The situation is intolerable in Gaza, and getting worse by the day,” Starmer told reporters in Scotland, when asked whether the UK would take any action over the issue
LONDON: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Monday that the situation in Gaza was getting “worse by the day” and that it was important to ensure the Palestinian enclave receives more humanitarian aid urgently.
“The situation is intolerable in Gaza, and getting worse by the day,” Starmer told reporters in Scotland, when asked whether the UK would take any action over the issue.
“Which is why we are working with allies ... to be absolutely clear that humanitarian aid needs to get in at speed and at volumes that it is not getting in at the moment, causing absolute devastation,” he added.
