The father of a German woman who died after being beaten in an apparent revenge attack after helping two teenagers in trouble has appealed for the girls to come forward.
Ali Albayrak urged the girls, believed to be between 13 and 16, to help police with the investigation into the murder of his daughter, Tugce, who died on Friday after the attack two weeks ago.
Tugce Albayrak (23), a teaching student, rushed to the aid of the girls upon hearing their screams when they were reportedly harassed by a group of three men in the toilet of a McDonald's in Offenbach, near Frankfurt.
The men were reportedly thrown out of the restaurant, leaving Albayrak and two friends to finish their meal. But when she left a short time later she was attacked in the car park, allegedly by one of the men with a stone or a baseball bat. She was in a coma for two weeks before her parents decided to switch off her life support machine after doctors said she would never regain consciousness.
An 18-year-old suspect, identified only as Sanel M from Serbia, is in police custody and is said to have admitted attacking Albayrak. "Tugce will not come back, but you owe it to her to speak out," her father said in a statement issued through Bild Zeitung. "My daughter saved you, she did everything to ensure that nothing happened to you. She even perhaps died for you. So I appeal to you, please go to the police and make a statement."
An Offenbach police spokesman said the investigation was focusing on finding the girls, who are believed to be blonde and German. “Our investigations are continuing in an intensive manner,” the spokesman said.
Head blow
Video footage published on the
Bild
website shows the attacker getting out of his car and approaching Albayrak and her friends. A man repeatedly tries to stand between the attacker and Albayrak, but the attacker manages to strike her on the head. The video shows her falling to the ground and hitting her head. The attacker then leaves abruptly.
The two girls are not believed to have been in the car park, but police said they could hold clues as to the background to the row and how the incident escalated. A postmortem is being carried out which police hope will determine whether it was the blow to her head or the fall to the ground that killed Albayrak.