Tamil attack in German church
BBC News:
A man wielding a sword has killed a woman and injured at least three other people during a service at a church in southern Germany.
Police said they found "grisly" scenes, including severed limbs, at the scene of the attack in Stuttgart.
A 25-year-old suspect was overpowered by officers and arrested.
He is an ethnic Tamil, as were most of the congregation. Police say the attack was not politically motivated and was probably prompted by personal problems.
The man stormed into the church just before 1600 (1400 GMT) waving a sword before going on the rampage, according to eyewitnesses.
He killed a 43-year-old woman and seriously injured three other people, including one whose hand was hacked off, police said.
Police described the scene as a "bloodbath".
About 65 people - half of them children - are believed to have been in the church at the time.
Counselling has been offered to those who witnessed the attack.
Tamils are a predominantly Hindu minority in Sri Lanka and southern India.
The group regularly rented the Stuttgart church to hold its services.
In the news:
Swordsman attacks Tamil church, killing woman
Woman killed in church sword attack
posted by Adam Lawson @ 10:18 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
To me the most interesting thing here is not the violence (horrific as it was), but the fact that there are enough Tamils in the area to rent a church. Exactly how Germany benefits from having a 'Tamil community' is not clear.
Also, this reminded me of the supposed Sri Lankan national handball team that came to Germany last year to participate in some tournament and then just disappeared; you can read a BBC blurb about that here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3658966.stm
The story got more bizarre from there, as reports about the games these guys played in showed many of them didn't seem to know the rules, and when asked the authorities back in Sri Lanka said the sport wasn't really played there and they didn't even know they had a national handball team. I followed the (Laurel & Hardy-ish) story for a little while, and last I heard several of the 'players' had called family back in Sri Lanka to say they were in Italy, where apparently there is also a sizable number of Tamils, and already had jobs. So the whole thing with the handball team seemed to be nothing but a ruse to get visas to enter the EU.
Which is perhaps not unrelated to the trouble German foreign minister Joschka Fischer finds himself in these days over the so-called visa affair: it seems under the Red/Green coalition Germany relaxed its visa oversight some years ago, and the watchword became 'when in doubt issue the visa'. This naivete was used for all kinds of nefarious purposes, including by organized crime to traffic women etc. The numbers were large enough and the situation serious enough that he may yet lose his job over this (one can hope, anyway).
The link didn't quite come thru, but if you goto the BBC news main site and search for "Sri Lanka handball" you can see the story:
[Sri Lanka handball team vanishes]
Here are some links concerning Fischer's immigration problems:
Immigrant flood may sink career of minister
Fischer takes blame for 'influx of criminals'
Intelligence agents warn visas still being abused
Former Diplomats Turn Against Fischer
Cool customer feels heat
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