Cologne police chief suspended after New Year assaults

Cologne's police chief was suspended Friday, national news agency DPA reported, after sharp criticism over his force's failure to prevent a rash of sexual assaults during New Year's Eve festivities.

Wolfgang Albers, 60, was put into "temporary retirement," said DPA as well as the city newspaper Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger, quoting unnamed local government sources.

Police have recorded more than 120 complaints by women of assaults ranging from groping to two rapes, allegedly committed in a large crowd of revellers during year-end festivities outside the city's main train station and its famed Gothic cathedral.

The attacks were carried out despite a heavy police deployment in the western German city, and officers have admitted that they did not realise what was happening.

Albers had initially dismissed calls for his resignation but has come under heavy fire, including from Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, who has said that "the police cannot work in this way".
Source: AFP