German cheese thief nabbed in cement mixer getaway

BERLIN, Oct 19 (Reuters) A thief caught shoplifting a packet of cheese from a supermarket in Germany tried to make his getaway in a cement mixer, but he was quickly nabbed by police.

''He was out on the job and suddenly got hungry, as honest workers sometimes do,'' said police spokesman in the eastern city of Chemnitz.

When a shop detective in the town of Limbach-Oberfrohna caught the man stealing a 3.98 dollars packet of processed cheese, the 55-year-old broke free and leapt into his cement mixing truck outside, police said, yesterday.

The shop alerted police, who arrested the man when he stopped his getaway vehicle at a red light a few hundred meters away.

REUTERS RKM BST0454