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Munich: Two young men went on trial yesterday for beating up a pensioner at a German train station last year in a widely publicised assault which sparked a nationwide debate about crime by foreign juveniles.
Serkan A., a 21-year old Turk, and 18-year old Spyridon L., a Greek, are facing charges of attempted murder for beating and kicking a 76-year-old man, who had reprimanded them for smoking in the Munich subway. The assailants had shouted "Shit German" at the man before kicking him in the head.
At the beginning of the trial, the defendants' lawyers asked for the public to be excluded from the hearings, saying they wanted to avoid their clients becoming stigmatised.
The brutal attack last December, caught on a surveillance camera and played repeatedly on German television in the weeks that followed, prompted calls for tougher sentences, boot camps and even deportation of criminals of foreign origin.
With an overall population of around 82 million, Germany is home to about 15 million people with an immigrant background.
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