A delegate to Germany’s far right Alternative for Deutschland Party’s congress is claiming self-defense after he bit a protestor during a scuffle Sunday outside the convention venue, DPA reports.
Stefan Hrdy, 67, says he was in his car on the way to the Grughalle Arena in the western city of Essen when he encountered traffic being blocked by a throng of leftist protestors. Hrdy got out to ask a cop to help clear the way when he was accosted. “Then I got kicked in the right calf, fell down and two or three fell on top of me, and then a kick came from the right, I was able to dodge a little, then I clutched the leg and bit down so that I didn’t get kicked again,” Hrdy told DPA.
A spokeswoman for Essen’s police department said this was news to them as they only learned of the biting incident via media reports and that neither Hrdy nor the unidentified protestor had filed a complaint. “Parts of the video do not match Hrdy’s account: It merely shows a demonstrator lying on top of him with his leg and Hrdy biting his calf. The kick to his calf that Hrdy described also cannot be seen in the video, although the view of the scuffle is partly obscured,” DPA writes.