Asian restaurant massacre in Germany: suspect linked by bloodstain

Feb 20, 2007, 14:35 GMT

Hanover, Germany - Police investigating the grisly shootings of seven ethnic Asians in a restaurant in Germany said Tuesday they have found the first solid proof against one of the suspects they are holding: a bloodstain on his clothing.

Two Vietnamese men were picked up by police on a country road the day after the massacre, but have denied the killing and have claimed through their lawyers that they were in a gaming parlour in another city at the time of the attack.

The mysterious February 4 killings of Danny Wing Hong Fan, 36, who had lived in Glasgow, Scotland most of his life, and his Berlin-born wife, 28, both British citizens, and their five staff from four Asian nations has shaken the Chinese community in Germany.

A spokesman for the task force of 100 detectives working on the case said a DNA check showed that a trace of blood on the clothing of a 31-year-old Vietnamese man definitely came from one of the victims.

The homes of four further Vietnamese passport holders have been searched in the coastal cities of Bremen and Bremerhaven, he added.

The police task force in Hanover, northern Germany has yet to say if there is any evidence that organized crime may have played a role in the killings in the rural town of Sittensen, where the neat restaurant was a popular eating-out venue among the townsfolk.

The staff killed in the Sunday night massacre hailed from Hong Kong, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand. The only survivor was the 2- year-old daughter of the Lin Yue restaurant's owners.