Seven migrants charged after homeless man set on fire
SEVEN migrants have been charged after they allegedly tried to burn a homeless man to death on Christmas Day.
CCTV footage of Berlin men who set homeless man on FIRE
A gang of migrants charged with setting a homeless man on fire
Six of the seven suspects are teenagers age between 15 and 18 turned themselves in to police after CCTV footage emerged of the incident which happened in Berlin on Sunday.
The homeless man, who had been sleeping in an underground railway station, managed to get away and escaped unharmed after the attack.
The seventh suspect, a 21-year-old man, was arrested near his home. Police in Germany said the man was the ringleader in the incident.
Six of the seven arrested are migrants from Syria and one is from Lebanon. According to investigators their status is "very different" - some of them have a residence status, others are in ongoing asylum procedures.
Each of the suspects entered the country in the past two years as asylum seekers and worryingly were all known to police.
The 37-year-old homeless man had been trying to keep warm under sheets of paper when the gang tried to set him alight at Schoenleinstrasse underground station in south Berlin.
The group were from Syria and Lebanon
It was left to a train driver and passers-by to help the man after the 2am attack.
In a video the men appeared to be laughing, smirking and talking after trying to set the man on fire.
One youth was the ringleader in the attack according to police
Police praised eyewitnesses for saving the man’s life after a train driver used a fire extinguisher to put out the blaze which destroyed the man’s belongings.
Eyewitnesses claim the gang fled into a subway and drove away now police have caught six of them.