German lawmakers to question Neo-Nazi terrorist in prison

BERLIN

A parliamentary committee investigating a far-right murder spree in Germany will question a key member of a Neo-Nazi terrorist group in prison next week, a senior lawmaker told Anadolu.

The National Socialist Underground (NSU) killed eight Turkish immigrants, a Greek citizen, and a German policewoman between 2000 and 2007, but the murders have long remained unresolved.

“Beate Zschaepe, the key member of the NSU group, has long remained silent and did not reveal any information. She was not questioned by an investigation committee since she was sentenced to prison in 2018,” said Cemal Bozoglu, a member of the Bavarian state parliament.

“We’d like to use this opportunity, and try to get more information that could shed light on this group and its crimes,” he told Anadolu.

The shadowy Neo-Nazi group carried out its first violent crimes in the southeastern state of Bavaria, including a bomb attack in 1999, and the murder of Turkish citizen Enver Simsek in 2000. The NSU members killed four other migrants in this region between 2011 and 2005.

The Bavarian State Parliament formed a new investigation committee last year to probe the NSU’s violent crimes and murders, and dozens of former officers, politicians and witnesses were invited to testify before the committee.

Bozoglu, a lawmaker from the Green Party, said the Neo-Nazi group’s motives, possible involvement in other violent crimes, and its ties to other far-right extremists in the region are still unknown and need to be thoroughly investigated.

Key suspect

The German public first learned of the NSU’s existence and its role in the murders on Nov. 4, 2011, when two members of the group committed suicide after an unsuccessful bank robbery. The police found evidence in their apartment showing they were behind the murders.

The three NSU members involved in the killings lived clandestine lives for nearly 13 years, apparently without arousing the suspicions of the German police or intelligence services.

The group’s only surviving member, Beate Zschaepe, was sentenced to life in prison by Munich’s Higher Regional Court in 2018 after a five-year-long trial. During the trial, Zschaepe declined to give any insight about the NSU.

“Zschaepe is the only person today who knows the details about the group and its crimes. When they traveled to other cities to commit these murders, where did they stay? For how many days? Which telephone lines did they use? Zschaepe knows all of these, and she could give us information. We’ll try to reveal such details,” he said.

The Bavarian State Parliament’s investigation committee on the NSU murders will question her on May 22, at a prison in the eastern German city of Chemnitz, Bozoglu said.

Shadowy far-right group

The scandal surrounding the NSU sparked a debate in Germany about institutional racism and the failures of German security and intelligence organizations, which have long been criticized for underestimating the far-right threat.

Until 2011, Germany's police and intelligence services dismissed any racial motive for the murders and instead treated immigrant families as suspects with alleged connections to mafia groups and drug traffickers.

Recent revelations in the media have shown that the country’s domestic intelligence agency BfV and its local branches had dozens of informants who had contacts with the NSU suspects in the past.

But officials insisted that they had no prior information about the existence of the NSU terror cell and its role behind the killings.