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Black German fighting for life after racist attack in Potsdam

18 April 2006

POTSDAM, GERMANY – A 37-year-old black German was in hospital with critical head injuries after a racist attack in an area near Berlin, German police in the city of Potsdam said Monday.

Police announced a 5,000-euro (6,000-dollar) reward for information on at least two culprits who brutally beat and kicked the man, an irrigation engineer who was born in Ethiopia, early Sunday.

Just before the attack, he switched on a mobile phone with a message-saving function so that it recorded the attackers calling him a “dirty nigger” and other racist insults. The victim has been naturalized as a German and is a father of two.

Potsdam police chief Bruno Kuepper said the victim and his wife, a locally-born woman, had arrived home together after a party Saturday evening and he had then gone to visit friends and was attacked on the way. A taxi driver came to his aid and the attackers fled.

Kuepper said 12 detectives were on the case, with charges of attempted murder and robbery likely, as a sum of money was stolen.

Neo-Nazi groups have formed in some of the small towns of Brandenburg state, of which Potsdam is the capital.

In an attack in March, a Macedonian man and a male Spanish student were beaten up. Police have not found the culprits yet. Shops belonging to foreigners in the small town of Rheinsberg had their windows broken earlier this year.

Brandenburg State Interior Minister Joerg Schoenbohm said: “We won’t allow anyone to be attacked or murdered in this state because of the colour of their skin, their religion or their politics.”

Copyright DPA with Expatica

Subject: German news