Hamburg police admit fault against cyclists at G20 summit
July 11, 2022
Five years after being assaulted by police officers during the G20 summit in Hamburg, two cyclists have received acknowledgment from the police that "illegal" force was used against them, the law firm Sven Adam said in a statement on Monday.
According to the statement, the two — at the time a 28-year-old woman and a 32-year-old man — were on their way home, trying to avoid streets closed off for the summit and related protest, when they were intercepted by police officers.
The incident resulted in a broken arm and injuries that required hospital treatment, according to the lawyers.
Following two lawsuits at Hamburg's administrative court, the police accepted that level of force used was illegal. The Reuters news agency reported that Hamburg police confirmed this position.
What happened in the incident?
The G20 summit in Hamburg was marred by violent clashes that were blamed on both the protesters themselves and the police response. Current Chancellor Olaf Scholz was mayor of the city at the time.
Police from all over Germany were brought in for the event. The lawyers for the two cyclists said that the officers who had injured them were from the eastern state of Saxony.
The cyclists said that the officers suddenly appeared in front of them and began shouting. They threw the woman cyclist from her bike in such a way that she broke her arm.
The man said that he was dragged from his bike and punched several times while he was calling for help. Both needed medical attention after the incident, the lawyers' statement said.
"It was brutal, unannounced, unjustified violence with serious consequences," lawyer Christian Woldmann said. "But the identification of the concrete perpetrator has come to nothing because the unit involved in the incident, most likely from Saxony, has been shrouded in silence."
A spokesperson for Hamburg police told Reuters that the decision to accept fault had been "for procedural reasons" and the officers involved had no recollection of the incident.
Edited by: Farah Bahgat