First arrests in German New Year’s Eve chaos likely to inflame asylum debate

BERLIN – German police Friday announced the arrests of two asylum seekers in a series of New Year’s Eve attacks in Cologne, a development likely to inflame what already is a fierce battle over the status of hundreds of thousands of migrants who’ve flooded Europe in recent months.

The police said the two suspects were arrested around midnight in the same square outside the city’s central train station where the attacks reportedly took place. The police said that during the arrests they’d uncovered photos and videos of sexual assaults as well as a list of threatening phrases to use to intimidate German women.

Federal police announced that they were investigating 31 other suspects – including an American – thought to be tied to the attacks. Eighteen of those are asylum seekers, police said.

Cologne police placed the number of suspects they were investigating at 21, and it was not immediately clear how or whether the two numbers overlapped. Under German law, the federal police are responsible for probing crimes that originated within the train station, while the city police are responsible for investigating acts outside.

Initial reports had put the number of young men present during the attacks at close to 1,000, though many were thought to be revelers and not attackers.

Still, on Friday the official tally of victims passed 200, and police reports continued to be filed. In addition to the attacks in Cologne, police are investigating similar though less numerous assaults in Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Stuttgart.

Meanwhile, police in Finland, which has accepted about 20,000 asylum seekers this year, reported that they had thwarted plans for similar attacks in that country’s capital, Helsinki. According to police, they’d received information that as many as 1,000 men were planning to assault women outside Helsinki’s central train station on New Year’s Eve and had marshaled police there to deal with the possibility. Thus far, only three Finnish women have reported being assaulted by the crowd.

As in Germany – which has taken in more than 1 million refugees this year, most thought to be from Syria – the asylum seekers in Finland are predominantly young, unaccompanied men. Most are thought to have come from Iraq.

Police have said they don’t think there is a connection between the attacks, but the apparent police efforts in Finland to prevent the assaults are likely to increase the criticism of German police, who’ve been slammed for a timid and slow response to the chaos and then for apparently attempting to cover up the extent of the mayhem. Many victims of the attacks have told German news outlets they’d pleaded with police for help but were left to fend for themselves. On Friday, the Cologne police chief was suspended, a step toward his likely dismissal.

As is the custom in Germany, police identified the arrested suspects with only partial names. One, Issam D., was described as a 16-year-old Moroccan, while the other, Mohamed T., was said to be a 23-year-old from Tunisia. Police said Issam D. was “a known pickpocket.”

Meanwhile, federal police announced the nationalities of the 31 suspects they are investigating. In addition to an American and two Germans, the group comprises nine Algerians, eight Moroccans, five Iranians, four Syrians, one Iraqi and one Serb. The police said 18 of the suspects are asylum seekers, and that most were suspected of physical assault and robbery.