{"id":217319,"date":"2019-06-04T01:32:31","date_gmt":"2019-06-04T05:32:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=217319"},"modified":"2019-06-04T01:32:31","modified_gmt":"2019-06-04T05:32:31","slug":"merkel-party-politician-slain-german-police-say-no-suspects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/06\/04\/merkel-party-politician-slain-german-police-say-no-suspects\/","title":{"rendered":"Merkel party politician slain; German police say no suspects"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Luebcke, a long-time member of Merkel’s centre-right Christian Democratic Party, in 2015 received threats after speaking out in support of helping asylum-seekers. The head of the Hesse state criminal police, Sabine Thurau, told reporters the earlier threats had \u201cno connection to the current crime, according to our knowledge.\u201d (File Photo<\/a>: @bundeskanzlerin\/Instagram<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

BERLIN — A politician from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party was found dead from a gunshot wound to the head outside his home in Hesse state,\u00a0German\u00a0authorities confirmed Monday, saying they haven’t identified suspects or a possible motive.<\/p>\n

Walter Luebcke, who was in charge of the Kassel area regional administration, was found outside his home early Sunday morning by a relative and attempts to reanimate him were unsuccessful, said Hesse prosecutor Horst Streiff.<\/p>\n

An autopsy confirmed that the 65-year-old died from a pistol shot to the head, fired at close range, Streiff said.<\/p>\n

A homicide investigation has been opened but at the moment \u201cwe have no concrete information on a suspect or a motive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Luebcke, a long-time member of Merkel’s centre-right Christian Democratic Party, in 2015 received threats after speaking out in support of helping asylum-seekers. The head of the Hesse state criminal police, Sabine Thurau, told reporters the earlier threats had \u201cno connection to the current crime, according to our knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neither Streiff nor Thurau would give further details, including whether the weapon used to kill Luebcke had been found or whether there were any witnesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis first phase after the crime is very decisive for the success of the investigation,\u201d Thurau said. \u201cWe don’t want speculation to endanger the investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her office has set up a special commission with 20 police officers to investigate, she said.<\/p>\n

Luebcke lived on the outskirts of the central city of Kassel, about 160 kilometres (100 miles) northeast of Frankfurt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BERLIN — A politician from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party was found dead from a gunshot wound to the head outside …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":216298,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-217319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217319"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":217322,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217319\/revisions\/217322"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}