Arson suspected in fire that left tens of thousands without power in Berlin
Two high-voltage pylons caught fire in a case of politically motivated suspected arson that left some 50,000 households without power in Berlin, police said on Tuesday, adding that it was still unclear what possible political affiliation the perpetrators may have.
The Berlin Fire Department extinguished the blaze, and authorities were investigating at the scene of the fire.
Entire streets and local transport are affected, a police spokesperson told public broadcaster rbb. Some patients at two nursing homes were transferred to hospitals, according to the fire department.
Work is underway to restore power by switching to other lines, but it was not initially clear how long the outage would last.
“This scale is an absolute exception,” a spokesperson for utility provider Stromnetz Berlin said.
Several tram lines were halted due to the power outage, but most are running again, according to the public transport authority.
Victims demand more than sympathy 25 years after NSU’s first murder
The Turkish-born florist Enver Simsek was waiting for customers at his roadside stall near the southern German city of Nuremberg when his murderers ambushed him in the early afternoon of September 9, 2000.
Nine more people, nearly all of Turkish or Greek origin, would be murdered, and it would take over a decade for authorities to uncover the trio of killers in the far-right extremist National Socialist Underground (NSU).
Questions remain regarding how a right-wing extremist terror group could execute people with non-German origins for years without the police and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution noticing a pattern.
Read more about the National Socialist Underground and how German authorities let down victims.
Far-left 30-year-old faces up to 9 years for attacking neo-Nazis
Demonstrators have called for Hanna S.’s release Image: David Oßwald/News5/dpa/picture alliance
Federal prosecutors requested a nine-year sentence for 30-year-old Hanna S. for attacking a group of neo-Nazis in Budapest in February 2023 in their closing argument on Monday.
The alleged left-wing extremist is on trial in Munich for attempted murder, grievous bodily harm, and membership in a criminal organization. Prosecutors said she is a member of a group with “militant left-wing extremist ideology” that rejects the rule of law and that she engaged in what it called “violence tourism.”
The defendant is alleged to have been part of a group that attacked and beat people they saw as neo-Nazis during what members of right-wing groups called a “Day of Honor” in Budapest. Right-wing extremist groups from across Europe gather in Hungary on the day to commemorate an attempt by Nazi soldiers and Hungarian collaborators to break a Red Army siege on the city, according to the Federal Prosecutor’s Office.
At the beginning of the trial, defense attorney Yunus Ziyal called the event in Budapest a “neo-Nazi show” and claimed prosecutors did not have clear evidence for the charges brought against S.
S. and other group members are alleged to have participated in two attacks on a total of three people.
S. has been in custody since her arrest in Nuremberg in May. Six other people face charges of participating in the attack and were arrested after having surrendered to authorities in January and March. According to their defense attorneys, they did so in part to stand trial in Germany rather than be extradited to Hungary, where they could face excessive prison sentences and potentially unfair trials.
S.’s trial started in February, and a verdict is due later this month.
Editor’s note: DW follows the German press code, which stresses the importance of protecting the privacy of suspected criminals or victims and obliges us to refrain from revealing full names in such cases.
