Post date: Aug 22, 2013 6:45:9 PM
A German parliamentary committee slams security forces for their handling of a series of racist murders carried out by a neo-Nazi cell that went undetected for a decade, while the victim's families describe the treatment they received from the authorities as "racist".
BERLIN, GERMANY (AUGUST 22, 2013) (REUTERS) - German security forces shamefully neglected the threat of the far right and their bungled investigations and prejudice enabled a neo-Nazi cell blamed for nine racist murders to go undetected for more than a decade, a parliamentary committee has concluded.
The stinging report came on Thursday (August 22) after a 19-month inquiry into the National Socialist Underground (NSU), whose chance discovery in late 2011 scandalised Germany and forced authorities to recognise the far-right fringe was more brutal and organised than previously thought.Their investigation revealed a multitude of mistakes at all levels, by Germany's patchwork of state and national police, prosecutors and intelligence agencies - and a systematic failure to consider racist motives behind the shootings of eight Turks and a Greek between 2000 and 2007, later attributed to the NSU.
Authorities assumed the killings must be due to feuds within the Turkish underworld and their one-sided investigations led to a series of dead-ends.
"Turks murder Turks, that seems to have been the mentality," said Sebastian Edathy, the Social Democrat (SPD) chairman of the committee.
"It will take longer for us to deal with changing mindsets than it will take to change laws... I don't think that we have institutional racism in our security forces but we certainly have individual racists in the authorities," he added.
The committee urged state bodies to work together better and said possible racist motives for a crime should always be considered. It recommended that security forces hire more people from ethnic minorities to reflect a multicultural society.
But lawmakers did not find evidence that anyone within the security forces deliberately protected the NSU and helped them avoid detection, though they did recommend new guidelines on the use of informants, after allegations that officers were often more interested in protecting informants than pursuing leads.
Beate Zschaepe, the only suspected member of the NSU who is still alive, went on trial in Munich in May. She is charged with complicity in the shooting of eight Turks, a Greek and a German policewoman, two bombings in immigrant areas of Cologne and 15 bank robberies.
Her two presumed male accomplices both committed suicide in 2011. Zschaepe faces life imprisonment.
The case shook a society that believed it had learned the lessons of the past, as well as undermining the trust of the migrant community in the German state's security apparatus.
Victims' families have spoken of their despair at finding themselves the object of suspicion in the midst of their grief. A lawyer representing them said at a separate news conference "no concept can be given to it other than racism," in reference to the authorities' treatment of the victims and perpetrators.
Mehmet Daimagueler emphasised that the victims' families would pursue the case further. "Today should not be the day where the great checking-off begins, rather it should be clear that we are only half the way there," he said. "We must continue in the new legislative period. It has to be clear: a half truth is not half of the truth".
At an earlier news conference with his German counterpart, Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu expressed his gratitude for Germany's investigation into the case.
"I thank the German government and I am pleased that the law is being exerted, that justice is being done," he said.
The existence of the NSU came to light in November 2011 when the two men believed to have founded the cell with Zschaepe, Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Boehnhardt, committed suicide after a botched bank robbery and set their caravan ablaze.
In the charred vehicle, police found the gun used in all 10 murders and a grotesque DVD claiming responsibility for them.
Zschaepe has kept silent since her arrest, leaving people struggling to make sense of her motives and to understand how an ordinary teenager could sink so deeply into the neo-Nazi scene.
The head of the domestic intelligence agency (BfV) resigned last year after it emerged that files on the use of informers were destroyed after the NSU's discovery. The BfV was singled out for failing to analyse the threat posed by the far right.