After the attack on a center-left lawmaker in the eastern city of Dresden, police say they have identified and searched the homes of three more teenage suspects.

Investigators on Monday said they had identified three more suspects after an attack on the European lawmaker Matthias Ecke and a Green Party campaign worker in Dresden.

Ecke, a member of the European parliament for Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD), was set upon by four attackers as he displayed EU election posters in Dresden on Friday night, according to police.

How the investigation has proceeded

After a 17-year-old had already turned himself in to the police, the apartments of three other suspects were searched.

During the investigation, two additional suspects were initially identified and their apartments were searched early on Sunday evening on the orders of the Dresden District Court.

A fourth suspect was identified on Sunday, whose apartment was also searched late in the evening. Investigators said evidence was confiscated and was now being evaluated. All four are said to be aged either 17 or 18.

A spokeswoman for the state police said the searches took place in Dresden and the surrounding area. 

Among others, officers from the police counter-terrorism and extremism units and the riot police were involved.

The investigators were said to have tracked down the three other suspects by evaluating evidence that was confiscated from the 17-year-old suspect who confessed. Police on Sunday said the 17-year-old who initially came forward had no previous criminal record, and had so far “not commented on the motive for the offence”

Politically motivated violence in Germany 

Chancellor Scholz condemned the attack, saying it was a threat to democracy. On Monday, the German Interior Ministry said interior ministers of Germany’s 16 states would hold an extraordinary meeting on Tuesday to discuss measures to counter attacks on politicians. 

These include greater police presence at political events both at the local and the federal level, as well as better protection of the privacy of politicians. An Interior Ministry spokesperson said the attacks constitute a “new dimension of violence.” 

The 41-year-old Ecke, head of the SPD’s European election list in the Saxony region, was knocked down as he put up posters ahead of June elections. He was “seriously injured” and needed an operation after the attack, his party said

Ecke was was just the latest political target to be attacked in Germany. Police said a 28-year-old man putting up posters for the Greens had been “punched” and “kicked” earlier in the evening on the same Dresden street.

In response to the violence, thousands of demonstrators gathered in the streets of Dresden and Berlin on Sunday to protest right-wing extremism and political violence.

An Interior Ministry spokesperson said Monday the attacks constitute a “new dimension of violence.” 

Source: Dw