'%20id='ico-down'%20stroke='%23000000'%20stroke-width='1.5'%3e%3cg%20transform='translate(1092.250000,%20254.750000)'%3e%3cpolyline%20id='Path-2-Copy-4'%20transform='translate(5.500000,%202.750000)%20scale(1,%20-1)%20rotate(-180.000000)%20translate(-5.500000,%20-2.750000)%20'%20points='0%200%205.5%205.5%2011%200'%3e%3c/polyline%3e%3c/g%3e%3c/g%3e%3c/g%3e%3c/svg%3e){kind=small}
13 October 2006
Berlin (dpa) – An Italian who claimed he was beaten up by right- wing thugs in a racist attack was given a six-month suspended jail sentence on Friday for fabricating the incident.
Gianni Congia, 30, had told the court he was attacked in the early hours of May 14 in the trendy Berlin suburb of Prenzlauer Berg.
Congia claimed he was hit in the face and struck on the knee with a wooden stick wielded by three shaven-headed men clad in leather jackets who called him “a dirty foreigner.”
The Italian was admitted to hospital suffering from a broken kneecap, but police investigations showed the injury happened when he fell from a railway platform while drunk.
CCTV cameras installed at the Alexanderplatz station showed Congia stumbling onto the tracks, but able to pull himself back onto the platform and limp away, reports said at the time.
The Berlin court did not accept the Italian’s version of events and handed him a six-month suspended prison term at the end of a month-long trial.
The alleged attack attracted a lot of attention at the time as it coincided with a spate of much publicized neo-Nazi assaults in the run-up to the football World Cup.
DPA
Subject: German news