Around three-quarters of the 55 people suspected of criminal offences such as violence, criminal damage and theft during the riots in Frankfurt last Saturday are foreign nationals – according to the police in the German city, in response to an enquiry from Apollo News.
It was on Saturday 31 October that a group calling itself ‘Gen Z regelt’ (a German-language version of ‘Gen Z rules’) called for protests in Germany, following the example set in France two weeks earlier. According to the German news service, calls for violence were made in advance in chat groups set up specifically for the protests.
In Frankfurt, the demonstration remained peaceful until nightfall, after which it turned into riots in which 180 police officers were injured.
During the operation, the police arrested 54 people. All were men. One of them, an 18-year-old Syrian national, was taken into custody. He is suspected of having stolen a weapon from a gun shop during the looting.
The recorded offences include, amongst other things, particularly serious breaches of public order, violent attacks on police officers, grievous bodily harm, particularly serious theft of firearms, and resisting police officers. A total of 87 criminal cases were reported in connection with the riots.
The suspects are therefore predominantly of foreign origin:
Around three-quarters of the 55 suspects identified so far are foreign nationals, some of whom also hold German citizenship. Approximately half of the suspects are German nationals. Of these, in turn, around half hold another nationality.
The Frankfurt police thus confirm that the German and Hessian Ministers of the Interior, Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) and Roman Poseck (CDU), respectively, in their comments shortly after the riots that the crimes had predominantly been committed by people from immigrant backgrounds – a view that drew fierce criticism from the left.
