German police stop train carrying football fans for six hours

Police halted a regional train in Hamburg to search for fans of the northern German city's main football club linked to a previous violent incident, a police spokesman said early on Sunday.

Officers deployed in force, halting the train at Hamburg-Bergedorf station to check around 855 people on the train, holding it up for around six hours. They were looking for suspects linked to a clash between fans of Hamburg's HSV and fans of Borussia Dortmund in September last year

They were also looking for fans who had thrown bottles in Rostock's central railway station following a second-league match on Saturday evening between HSV and Hansa Rostock.

Some 400 officers were deployed in the operation, which began shortly after 8 pm local time as the HSV fans were travelling back to Hamburg from Rostock.

The six-hour search and ID check caused a number of delays in regional rail traffic.

Police were looking for 60 suspects who were involved in the clash on September 16 last year and had not as yet been identified by name, senior Hamburg police officer Jan Müller said. Several people were injured in the fighting, which took place in the Mannheim railway station.

Müller said at least 31 of the 60 were identified on Saturday evening, but that the final figures were not yet available. No arrests were made, and the fans were allowed to proceed after their IDs were checked.