BERLIN (Reuters) – German police searched residences connected to four suspected members of a right-wing youth organisation on Friday who were arrested for attacking election campaigners for the Social Democratic Party (SPD) at a bus stop earlier this month.
Police confiscated mobile devices, right-wing propaganda and balaclavas, among other items, during searches of 10 residences in the states of Lower Saxony, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt.
The raids targeted a total of eight suspects between ages 16 and 21 in connection with the bus stop attack.
Three of the suspects were in custody while a fourth has been released on parole. The four remaining suspects had been identified as part of investigations by Berlin police.
All the suspects are believed to be part of German Youth First, a group that takes part in far-right rallies nationwide and has targeted political opponents with violent attacks.
According to police, the four suspected attackers ran into SPD members at a bus stop in the southwestern Berlin borough of Lichterfelde as they headed to planned demonstrations with the aim of getting into fights with left-wing activists.
They threw the SPD members’ caps on the ground and verbally and physically assaulted the campaigners, police said, kicking one of them in the head with combat boots. Police reinforcements had to be called in to stop the attack, which also left two officers injured.
The case echoes a violent attack against a German member of the European Parliament while he was putting up SPD posters ahead of last June’s EU election that left him needing surgery.
Politicians, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the SPD, have warned about an increase in political violence. The BfV domestic intelligence agency has said far-right extremism is the biggest threat to German democracy.
(Writing by Miranda Murray, Editing by Friederike Heine and Ros Russell)
