Asylum seekers arrested in Cologne sex assaults
BERLIN— German police Friday announced the arrests of two asylum seekers in a string of New Year’s Eve sexual assaults and robberies, a development likely to inflame what already is a fierce battle over the status of hundreds of thousands of migrants who have flooded into Europe in recent months. Meanwhile, Cologne’s police chief was dismissed on Friday amid mounting criticism of his force’s handling of the series of attacks.
Police said the two suspects were arrested around midnight in the same square outside the city’s cen- tral train station where the attacks reportedly took place. The police said that during the arrests they’d uncovered photos and videos of sexual assaults as well as a list of threatening phrases to use to intimidate German women.
The state government of North Rhine-Westphalia said it was sending 60-year-old Wolfgang Albers, Cologne’s police chief, into early retirement. The state’s interior minister, Ralf Jaeger, said the move was “necessary to restore public trust and the Cologne police’s ability to act, with a view to upcoming major events.” Cologne’s annual Carnival is next month.
Albers had faced mounting criticism for the police’s handling of the alleged New Year’s Eve attacks on women by small groups of men described as being of “Arab or North African origin.”
Police initially failed to mention the assaults around Cologne’s main station in their report the following morning, describing the New Year festivities as “largely peaceful.”
An internal police report widely published in German media Thursday indicated strongly that police were overwhelmed and described how women had to run through mobs of drunken men outside Cologne’s main train station.
Earlier Friday, Germany’s Interior Ministry said police have identified 18 asylum seekers among 31 suspects in connection with the robberies and assaults.
A spokesman for the Interior Ministry said the suspects were detained by federal police.
Tobias Plate told reporters in Berlin that those detained are suspected of committing crimes ranging from theft to assault and, in one case, verbal abuse of a sexual nature. Plate said the suspects were nine Algerians, eight Moroccans, five Iranians, four Syrians, two Germans and one person each from Iraq, Serbia and the United States.