Officials in Berlin and Lower Saxony are looking into ways in which they can obtain genetic fingerprints of convicted football hooligans ahead of the World Cup finals, police said on Wednesday.
Legislation had been passed earlier which makes this possible. It is hoped that the new measures will make it easier to identify criminals if a crime has been committed.
Hamburg's Interior Minister, Udo Nagel, is also said to be interested in following such a policy.
"It is an interesting concept which is worth thinking about," he said, adding that his department was looking into the possibility of it happening before the finals on June 9 to July 9.
His Lower Saxony counterpart, Uwe Schunemann said that he believed it would be possible to take genetic fingerprints from convicted hooligans.
"We believe it can be done and if it is possible, we will immediately do it," he said.
There are some 700 to 800 known hooligans on the vicious offenders list in Lower Saxony, while Berlin has more than 1,000. But it is questionable whether all of them could be forced to give a genetic fingerprint.
The German parliament lowered the judicial hurdles which allowed officials to take a genetic fingerprint in November last year.
"The new rules make it much easier to take genetic fingerprints," a spokesman for the Berlin police said. "We will want to make use of that."
Police investigators believe hooligans would stand fewer chances of escaping after criminal activities if their genetic fingerprints were in a data base.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB