extremism
SEK operation: “Reich citizen” threatens police with knife
A man who describes himself as a Reich citizen threatened police officers in Velbert with a knife, triggering a SEK operation. photo
© Christoph Reichwein/dpa
In Velbert, a suspected right-wing extremist man threatened the police, triggering an operation by the special operations team.
A self-proclaimed “Reich citizen” threatened police officers with a knife in Velbert near Düsseldorf, triggering a SEK operation. The special forces eventually overpowered the man and arrested him Police said.
Initially, the police were called to an apartment building late in the evening about property damage. The man had damaged a door. When the officers arrived there, the 30-year-old threatened them with a knife, according to police reports.
He also shouted that he hated the police and was a “Reich citizen”. In the so-called Reichsbürger scene, the prevailing view is that the historic German Empire, founded in 1871 with an emperor at its head, still exists today and that all state institutions should therefore be rejected as illegitimate.
SEK blows up apartment door
Because the man locked himself in his apartment, the special forces were called in to provide support. The SEK blew the door open and overwhelmed him. The man is now in custody and the investigation is ongoing.
The first trial against a group of alleged conspirators around Henry XIII took place in Stuttgart on Monday. Prince Reuss, who are said to have planned a violent overthrow of the federal government. It is the first of three mammoth trials in which members of the group are gradually coming before the judge – their case came to light after a large-scale anti-terror raid in several federal states and abroad in December 2022. It is one of the largest terror trials in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany.