AA 17-year-old Ukrainian youth basketball player was stabbed to death during a fight between young people at the Oberhausen main train station on Saturday evening. His 18-year-old teammate, also from Ukraine, as well as a 14-year-old Syrian girl and a 13-year-old German-Lebanese girl were seriously injured.
The homicide squad established at the Essen police headquarters was able to arrest two suspects in Gelsenkirchen and Herne on Sunday. An arrest warrant was issued for a 15-year-old German-Turkish man from Gelsenkirchen for murder, while a 14-year-old German-Greek man from Herne could not be found guilty, investigators said. The two have “already featured prominently in the criminal investigation.”
According to the police's previous findings, the young people first got into a verbal argument on the bus on the way to the center of Oberhausen. After getting off at the main train station, the conflict escalated.
Volodymyr Jermakov, who played U-19 basketball in the Bundesliga for Düsseldorf Art Giants, died. He only moved to Dusseldorf in July 2023 to escape Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, as announced by the club. While the Ukrainian Basketball Association suspected that the young athlete was stabbed because of his Ukrainian origins, his Düsseldorf club said: “We cannot make any statement on the exact cause of Volodymyr's death at this time.” Homicide Commission “The investigation into the causes of the crime is in full swing.”