German police probe 'anti-vaxxer murder plot' in Saxony state

BERLIN • German police searched several locations in the eastern state of Saxony yesterday as part of an investigation into what they said was a plot to murder the state's prime minister, Mr Michael Kretschmer, by anti-vaccination activists.

The searches in the city of Dresden targeted individual members of a group on the messaging app Telegram, where plans for the killing were discussed in connection with the state government's coronavirus curbs, police said.

The group "Dresden Offlinevernetzung", or Dresden offline networking, came to the attention of the authorities after an investigation published last week by broadcaster ZDF. The ZDF report revealed that members of the Telegram group spoke about killing representatives of the Saxony state government at meetings in Dresden.

Special forces took part in yesterday's raids, which were launched after statements by members of the Telegram group suggested that they might be in possession of sharp weapons and crossbows, Saxony police said on Twitter.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said yesterday that the country would "defend itself" against a violent minority of anti-vaccine militants who have threatened public officials. "We will not allow a tiny minority of uninhibited extremists to try to impose its will on the whole of society," he said in his first speech as chancellor to Parliament.

"Germany will use all the means of its democratic rule of law to defend itself against this tiny minority of the hateful attacking the rest of us."

Saxony, which has the second-highest rate of new coronavirus cases in Germany and the lowest vaccination rate, has seen protests by opponents of Covid-19 restrictions in recent weeks.

Last month, a group of protesters held a torch-lit gathering outside the home of Saxony's interior minister, in what was widely seen as an implicit threat of violence against him.

Germany's vaccine campaign has been less successful than in other developed nations, with just 69.7 per cent of the population fully inoculated as at Tuesday. That compares with almost 80 per cent in France and nearly 75 per cent in Italy, according to Bloomberg's vaccine tracker.

The pace of vaccinations has picked up in recent weeks, with the focus shifting to administering as many booster shots as possible to lift immunity levels and ward off the potentially rapid spread of the new Omicron variant of the disease.

Mr Scholz vowed yesterday to win the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, imploring Germans to get vaccinated as the only way out of the crisis.

REUTERS