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Raiders drive car into Berlin Apple store

Burglars drove through the front door of Berlin's Apple store on Monday morning, helping themselves to goods inside. It is the seventh break-in of its kind in the capital this year.

Published: 23 December 2013 11:12 CET

Raiders drive car into Berlin Apple store

Photo: DPA

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The Apple store on Berlin's Kurfürstendamm shopping street only opened in May, and now faces extensive damages after burglars drove a stolen car through the front door, Bild newspaper reported.

Police confirmed on Monday that a Opel Corsa with several people inside hurtled into the building at 4.15am.They grabbed electronics and piled into a second car that had driven in behind the first. It is not yet clear how many items they took or the value of the goods.

The break-in mirrors one that happened at Berlin's Alexa shopping centre on December 9th. Burglars got away with around €100,000 worth of goods in a one-minute raid. A second, smaller scale, burglary happened again at an electronics shop in Zehlendorf on December 18^th.

The state's criminal investigations office has opened an investigation into the smash-and-grab raids – of which there have been seven in the past year. They are likely, police believe, being carried out by the same gang.

READ MORE: Berlin burglars steal 300 phones in one minute

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Germany in talks on further payout for 1972 Olympics victims

Ahead of the commemoration in September, relatives of the Israelis killed have indicated they are unhappy with what Germany is offering.

“Conversations based on trust are taking place with representatives of the victims’ families,” a German interior ministry spokesman told AFP when asked about the negotiations.

He did not specify who would benefit or how much money had been earmarked, saying only that any package would “again” be financed by the federal government, the state of Bavaria and the city of Munich.

On September 5th, 1972, eight gunmen broke into the Israeli team’s flat at the Olympic village, shooting dead two and taking nine Israelis hostage, threatening to kill them unless 232 Palestinian prisoners were released.

West German police responded with a bungled rescue operation in which all nine hostages were killed, along with five of the eight hostage-takers and a police officer.

An armed police officer in a tracksuit secures the block where terrorists held Israeli hostages at the Olympic Village in Munich on 5th September 1972. Photo: picture alliance / dpa | Horst Ossingert

The spokeswoman for the victims’ families, Ankie Spitzer, told the German media group RND that the amount currently on the table was “insulting” and threatened a boycott of this year’s commemorations.

She said Berlin was offering a total of €10 million including around €4.5 million already provided in compensation between 1972 and 2002 — an amount she said did not correspond to international standards.

“We are angry and disappointed,” said Spitzer, the widow of fencing coach Andre Spitzer who was killed in the attack. “We never wanted to talk publicly about money but now we are forced to.”

RND reported that the German and Israeli governments would like to see an accord by August 15th.

The interior ministry spokesman said that beyond compensation, Germany intended to use the anniversary for fresh “historical appraisal, remembrance and recognition”.

He said this would include the formation of a commission of German and Israeli historians to “comprehensively” establish what happened “from the perspective of the year 2022”.

This would lead to “an offer of further acts of acknowledgement of the relatives of the victims of the attack” and the “grave consequences” they suffered.

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