GERMANY
Ex-Nazi guard charged
Prosecutors have indicted a 92-year-old former Auschwitz guard on charges of accessory to murder. Deutsche Presse Agentur (DPA) on Wednesday reported that the man had been indicted before a juvenile court in Hanau, near Frankfurt, because he was between 19 and 20 years old at the time of the alleged crimes. The suspect, who was not named, is alleged to have played a part in the deportation of prisoners from Nazi transit camps in Berlin, Drancy in occupied France and Westerbork in the occupied Netherlands. Prosecutors say at least 1,075 of those prisoners were gassed to death shortly after arriving in Auschwitz, the report said. The move comes on the same day a German court convicted former SS sergeant Oskar Groening of accessory to the murder of 300,000 Jews in Auschwitz.
GERMANY
Director’s head stolen
Grave robbers have stolen from a crypt the head of German expressionist cinema great Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, director of the silent-film vampire classic Nosferatu, reports said on Wednesday. Police did not rule out an occultist motive after finding candle wax in the family crypt in Stahnsdorf, southwest of Berlin, and were investigating the case on charges of theft and disturbing the peace of the dead. One or more grave robbers opened the metal coffin before decapitating the director’s embalmed body, but did not disturb the remains of his two brothers, Bild daily and DPA reported. Born in 1888, Murnau is best known for his 1922 silent movie classic Nosferatu — A Symphony of Horror, which Hollywood magazine Variety wrote is “recognized as one of the scariest horror movies of all time.”
FRANCE
Six brothers charged
Six brothers suspected of robbing a chic beachwear store, before dodging police bullets and leading a car chase through Paris, have been rounded up and charged, legal sources said on Wednesday. The thieves are accused of stealing swimsuits, Bermuda shorts and T-shirts with a street value of up to 100,000 euros (US$109,000) from a store of the upmarket Vilebrequin chain on Thursday last week. A source close to the investigation said police arriving at the scene of the crime near the Champs-Elysees found obstacles barring entry to the store. A policeman fired three shots in the direction of the robbers, but the men managed to get away, leading to a car chase through Paris to the eastern suburb of Fontenay-sous-Bois. Police later tracked the suspects to a house in Fontenay-sous-Bois where they found the gang of brothers and half-brothers as well as thousands of euros in cash.
UNITED STATES
Kids bring bomb to play
A group of Oregon children who stumbled across an undetonated, decades-old military-grade mortar shell in a Portland wildlife refuge took it to a play date, but escaped unharmed, Portland police said on Wednesday. The 30cm-long weapon was likely tossed as refuse into the Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge, and officials do not expect to find any more undetonated bombs in the area, Portland Police Bureau spokesman Pete Simpson said. “It’s a mortar shell and very old. Not clear how old, but certainly decades, at least,” Simpson said. Experts with the 142nd Oregon Air National Explosives Ordinance Disposal Team and a second, local agency, bomb squad worked together to deactivate the object, which was still potentially dangerous, a department press release said.
AUSTRALIA
Skeletal remains found
The skeletal remains of a young child have been found dumped in bushland, with police yesterday looking for an elderly man seen carrying a suitcase in the area. Police Superintendent Des Bray told reporters the dead child, whose sex has not been determined and is believed to have been aged between two and seven, was likely killed elsewhere. He said the body was stuffed in a suitcase and left alongside the Karoonda Highway, 130km east of Adelaide, about four to six weeks ago. By the time it was found by a passing motorist on Tuesday, the remains were about 2m away from the suitcase. “The child was originally in the suitcase and at some point somebody has, we believe, removed the child from the suitcase,” he said. “It’s hard to say what happened and why, but we know for certain that somebody has come, found the suitcase, opened it to have a look what was in there, tipped out the contents and at that stage become aware that it was most likely human remains.”
AUSTRALIA
Johnny Depp’s wife charged
The nation’s “war on terrier” with Johnny Depp has taken another turn, with authorities saying yesterday the Hollywood star’s wife faces charges over bringing their two dogs into the country. The Department of Agriculture, which is responsible for biosecurity, said actress-model Amber Heard was served with a summons on Tuesday to answer charges for allegedly breaching quarantine laws. “[This] action follows an incident where a biosecurity officer attended a Gold Coast property... and found two dogs alleged to be illegally imported,” a department spokeswoman said. Reports said the case was due to be heard in September in a Queensland court, though it is not known whether Heard is to appear in person. Penalties for contravening the Quarantine Act range from fines to a maximum of 10 years in prison.
CHINA
Mugger awarded damages
A court ordered a mugger’s intended victim to pay his attacker 70,000 yuan (US$11,000) after he fought off the attempted robbery and beat him up, state-run media reported on Wednesday. The court sentenced the mugging target, identified only by the surname, Yuan, to three months’ probation along with the fine, the Global Times reported. The would-be thief, surname Zeng, tried to steal Yuan’s mobile phone in Dongguan, but he turned on the mugger and chased after him with two other men, the report said. The trio caught up with Zeng and beat him. A bruised Zeng reported the February incident to police the next day and the three men turned themselves in soon afterward. Yuan and his co-defendants were criminally liable since they did not report the attempted robbery to police before taking action, the court ruled.
THAILAND
Elephants electrocuted
A farmer was arrested yesterday after he confessed to erecting an electrified fence which killed three elephants close to a national park, police said. The three pachyderms — one male and two females — were found dead on Wednesday near a village pond outside Kaeng Krachan national park. Police initially thought they had been poisoned by eating pesticide-sprayed crops, but they now believe the animals were electrocuted. Farmer Sompong Yapakdi, 46, has confessed to putting electrified wire around the pond to stop the elephants accessing the water. “He said he used wire to circle the reservoir to prevent the elephants from jumping into the pond,” police officer Naruepanat Nujui said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
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