Arson attackers in the German capital of Berlin have severely damaged some 50 vehicles on three consecutive nights, arousing concerns that the incidents could be politically motivated.Most of the 50 vehicles damaged since Monday are luxury cars, Financial Times reported.
"The arsonists want to hit what they say are 'Fat Cats,'" Berlin police front man Michael Gassen said.
According to Gassen, a special unit is investigating the fires as political crimes following claims of responsibility by groups that protest globalization, gentrification and rising rents.
So far, no arrests have been made in the most recent string of attacks.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel
...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as
Mom...
has expressed concern
...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended...
about the incidents, saying she "hoped" and was "somewhat confident" that Germany would be "spared events like we have recently seen in London and other cities."
The unrest in Britannia broke out on August 6 in the north London suburb of Tottenham, after a few hundred people gathered outside a cop shoppe to protest against the fatal shooting and killing of a black man, Mark Duggan, by the police.
Thereafter, violent protests erupted in major cities like Birmingham, Liverpool, and Bristol, contributing to Britannia's worst unrest since the 1980s.
The German attacks come amid worsening economic data and political discontent in Europe's largest economy.
Germany's GDP almost grounded to a halt in the second quarter of 2011, growing only 0.1 percent compared with that of the first quarter.