BERLIN: A man has been ordered held pending possible charges for his alleged involvement in an attack on two Africans in a western German town last weekend, prosecutors said Saturday.
The 29-year-old was one of three arrested following the incident on the fringes of a wine festival in Guntersblum, near Mainz.
The man was one of a group of six Germans who encountered a Sudanese and an Egyptian man in the early hours of Aug. 19.
He is believed to have shouted a racist slur, threatened to flatten the two and then tried unsuccessfully to karate-kick the Sudanese man, who was then beaten, prosecutor Klaus Puderbach said.
When the Egyptian tried to help his companion, he was attacked with a broken bottle and had a finger injured, Puderbach added. Passers-by then intervened and called police.
A court decided Saturday to keep the man in custody pending possible charges, but freed a 26-year-old who also was arrested. A third man was detained only briefly Friday.
There has been concern over another attack last weekend in Germany s formerly communist east, in which eight Indians were chased by a mob as onlookers shouted slurs. Two men are under investigation in that attack.
That incident revived worries about levels of racist violence and far-right extremism in the depressed east, and the German government promised a thorough investigation.
Authorities in Rhineland-Palatinate, the western state where Guntersblum is located, condemned the attack there sharply.
State governor Kurt Beck said far-right extremism is a problem for the whole of Germany.
It is clearly not the case that we cannot simply look at the east, Beck said on ARD television. He also leads the Social Democrats, which make up half of Germany s national government.
