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A German court has ruled that seven Muslim men who formed a Sharia street patrol did not break laws against political uniforms.

The group sparked outrage in the western city of Wuppertal in 2014, when they approached people in orange vests bearing the words “Sharia Police”. They demanded that locals stop gambling, listening to music, and drinking alcohol.

The group’s alleged organiser, Sven Lau, is a well-known Islamist preacher. He is facing separate charges of supporting a terrorist group fighting in Syria.

A film of the “patrol” appeared on YouTube, prompting condemnation from the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, who said their behaviour was “harmful to Muslims”.

Wuppertal’s district court ruled that the seven vigilantes could only have broken the law – which was originally aimed at street movements such as the early Nazi party – if their uniforms were “suggestively militant or intimidating”, a court spokesman said. In this case, it found that the vests were not threatening, noting that one witness mistook the gang for a stag do. The same court threw out the case last year, but was overruled on appeal by a higher court which felt the ban on uniforms could be applied in this case.

Monday’s verdict is not yet final and may still be appealed. So-called “Sharia patrols” by ultra-conservative Muslim men have been seen in other European cities including London, Copenhagen and Hamburg.

Russia has accused Ukraine of abducting two of its servicemen from the Crimean peninsula, which it annexed in 2014.

The Russian defence ministry said the men were “illegally detained” on Sunday. Ukraine says the pair are deserters, who defected to Russia from the Ukrainian military after Crimea was annexed by Russian forces in 2014.

Russia called their arrest “another act of gross provocation” and called for their “immediate return”. The men have been named as Ensign Maxim Evgenyevich Odintsov and Junior Sergeant Alexander Vyacheslavovich Baranov.

Russia said they were taken from Crimea to Ukraine’s Mykolaiv region, north-west of the peninsula. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said the detainees were apprehended after crossing into Ukrainian-controlled territory. “We did not abduct anyone – we arrested two deserters who had crossed the border at the Chongar checkpoint,” said SBU spokeswoman Elena Gitlyanskaya, quoted by Ukraine’s Unian news agency. She said the pair were now under criminal investigation.

In a statement, the Russian defence ministry accused Ukraine’s security agencies of “fabricating” criminal charges against the two soldiers “for crimes allegedly committed against Ukraine”. It warned that “psychological and physical pressure” could be exerted on them to produce confessions.

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Masked men have robbed two Qatari women and their driver on a motorway north of Paris, taking valuables worth €5m (£4.5m; $5.6m), police sources say.

The sisters had just left Le Bourget airport in their Bentley on Monday evening when they were forced off the road and sprayed with tear gas.”Everything in the vehicle: jewels, clothes, luggage” was taken, a police source told AFP news agency.

A Saudi prince was robbed while passing through the same area two years ago.

Le Bourget bills itself as “Europe’s premier business airport”.

A source who spoke to French digital TV station BFMTV said the women’s car had been forced to stop near a service station. The section of the motorway where the robbery took place is favoured by criminals targeting luxury cars or wealthy-looking foreigners stuck in traffic jams:

In April last year, an east Asian art collector was robbed of jewels worth €4m when three people caved in the window of her taxi

In August 2014, heavily armed men attacked a convoy of cars belonging to a Saudi prince, stealing €250,000, as he headed in a convoy to Le Bourget

Last month, US reality TV star Kim Kardashian was tied up and robbed at gunpoint of jewellery worth up to €6m in a luxury apartment in the heart of Paris. Earlier this month, the French government announced extra funding for the tourist industry, promising to install more surveillance cameras in areas of the capital targeted by robbers.

Inmates smashed up 36 cells in a riot at a Doncaster prison, officials said.

The action by prisoners at HMP Moorland caused fire and water damage in one of the wings. One prisoner was injured but did not require hospital treatment. No staff were hurt.

The Prison Officers Association (POA) said 60 inmates had been moved to other prisons. Staff brought the “isolated incident” under control overnight, the Prison Service said. It is unclear how many prisoners took part in the rioting.

Paul McLennan, branch chairman of HMP Moorland POA, said the riot started at about 17:45 GMT on Sunday during “our lock-up time”. He said: “We’ve lost house block 2 A-wing. There is some fire damage – to what extent we don’t know yet because it’s cordoned off. “The lights and everything are out so we’re in darkness in there at the moment… and it’s not good.”

Mr McLennan said he hoped the riot would not “spread to other wings”. “Our main concern is to make the prison safe and try to get back to some normality,” he said.

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Police in Spain who arrested a murder suspect may have been handed a large clue through one of his tattoos.

The unnamed man was sought by German police after the murder of his girlfriend in Bavaria. Authorities did not know when she died, but one of the man’s tattoos gives her name, Lisa, and date of death – 27 October 2016.

The man was held in Lloret de Mar, in Catalonia, with their 18-month-old son, who was in good health.

The woman’s body was found by her mother last week. She was found in a block of flats in the town of Freyung, close to the Czech border. An initial autopsy showed that the woman had died some three weeks before she was found. Spain’s national police said her mobile phone was taken by the killer with the intention of using her social media accounts, thus misleading investigators.

The man, named in Germany as Dominik R, was traced to Spain after he was found to have withdrawn money there. A European arrest warrant was then issued. Spanish police say they believe he was heading to north Africa.

A statement by Spanish police said the new tattoo “may be interpreted as the date of death”. The suspect is now awaiting extradition to Germany.