Vandals spray swastikas on Berlin police graves

BERLIN — Vandals spray-painted swastikas on the Berlin graves of two German police officers killed in the line of duty, sparking outrage Wednesday and an investigation by the domestic security service.

One gravestone was toppled over, both were defaced with red spray-paint, and flowers were ripped out of their beds in the overnight attack on a cemetery in the Berlin district of Neukoelln.

The late officers are Roland Krueger, a police commando member shot dead during a 2003 raid on a Kurdish-Lebanese crime family, and Uwe Lieschied, shot dead while confronting a street robber in 2006.

The interior minister of the city-state of Berlin, Andreas Geisel, voiced his “disgust and shame” about the violation of the graves, which he described as “a wicked act directed against those who died while working to ensure our safety.”

Other police officers restored the graves in the morning, while the BfV domestic security service took over the case because of the illegal Nazi symbol.