Germans strip driver's truck
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by David Craik • A Kent-based haulier is accusing German police of racial victimisation after her Turkish husband driver was fined £850 and their truck was stripped of parts while it sat in a police compound.
Nuriye Eker, owner of Eker Transport of Canterbury, says that her husband Nustasa Eker was on his way to collect loads in Essen last month when he was stopped by German police in Stuttgart.
"The police inspected the truck and said it should be scrapped," she says. "They told us the brakes, lights and exhausts were faulty. The only thing they praised were our German tyres."
Eker says a private engineer she hired agrees that the exhaust was faulty but found no problems with the other items.
As the vehicle's owner Eker expected to receive the fine but it was given to her husband. She believes this was because he had a Turkish passport. "They said that they were not going to fine me as I had an English passport," she says.
The truck was impounded, and when the Ekers returned to Germany to pay the fine they found some items had been stolen. "The top cover of the engine had gone as had the stereo, quilt cushion and pillows," says Eker.
She claims the German police accused her husband of doing the damage himself. Eker warns all nonEU hauliers that they could get the same treatment. "The Germans are just being nasty to foreign drivers," she says.