“Emotional crime”: Elderly German man accidentally breaks into a man’s apartment and beats him

Another man was seriously injured after he accidentally broke into his apartment and beat him, thinking that he was the new partner of his ex-girlfriend.

On Saturday, the prosecutor’s office and Offenburg police confirmed that the alleged attacker used a ladder to enter an apartment in the town of Newred in the German state of Baden-Württemberg late on Friday, beating his victim while sleeping several times on the head.

The alleged attacker then fled the scene, but was arrested early Saturday at his home in Heidelberg.

The man appeared to have simply broken into the wrong apartment and the injured man was taken to hospital, police said.

The prosecutor’s office and police are treating the incident as attempted murder.