First arrests in German New Year’s Eve chaos likely to inflame asylum debate [View all]

[FreakinDJ]

First arrests in German New Year’s Eve chaos likely to inflame asylum debate

BERLIN —



German police Friday announced the arrests of two asylum seekers in a series of New Year’s Eve attacks in Cologne, a development likely to inflame what already is a fierce battle over the status of hundreds of thousands of migrants who’ve flooded Europe in recent months.

The police said the two suspects were arrested around midnight in the same square outside the city’s central train station where the attacks reportedly took place. The police said that during the 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.



Federal police announced that they were investigating 31 other suspects – including an American – thought to be tied to the attacks. Eighteen of those are asylum seekers, police said.

Cologne police placed the number of suspects they were investigating at 21, and it was not immediately clear how or whether the two numbers overlapped. Under German law, the federal police are responsible for probing crimes that originated within the train station, while the city police are responsible for investigating acts outside.

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