2023-09-26 11:32:15
Germany
14-year-old suspected of killing 6-year-old
On Tuesday, German police arrested a young man suspected of stabbing a toddler to death in Pragsdorf.
PublishedSeptember 26, 2023, 1:32 p.m.
The teenager had aroused suspicion before the DNA analysis, by making contradictory statements.
A 14-year-old boy, suspected of stabbing a 6-year-old boy to death, was arrested Tuesday morning in northeast Germany, police said. The boy was found seriously injured in a thicket on September 14, following his parents reported his disappearance, not seeing him return from the sports field in the small town of Pragsdorf.
The child died in hospital. Investigators found near the crime scene a knife bearing traces of the victim’s DNA and “with a very high probability” those of the suspect, police said in a statement.
The teenager had already aroused suspicion before the DNA analysis by making contradictory statements, even though he was the last to have seen the child alive, the same source added. The teenager must now be presented to a judge. For the moment, the police say they do not know the motives of the crime.
Several precedents
This case comes following several child murders which shocked public opinion in Germany. Last March, two preteen girls aged 12 and 13 had confessed to the stabbing of one of their 12-year-old friends in the west of the country. They were not criminally responsible because they were under 14, the minimum age in Germany for conviction.
In September, justice indicted an 11-year-old boy suspected of having killed a 10-year-old girl in a children’s home in Bavaria (south). That same month, a 14-year-old boy was arrested for killing a boy of the same age who was found shot to death on the grounds of a school in Bavaria.
(AFP)
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