Lübeck arson attack

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The house after the attack
Memorial stone
Expansion from 2015

As Lübeck arson attack will stop at a home for asylum seekers in the night January 18, 1996 in Lübeck designated port road. Ten people (three adults and seven children and young people) died in this arson . They came from Zaire , Angola , Togo and Lebanon , the youngest were born in Germany. 38 other residents were injured. The crime was not solved and the investigation has come under strong public criticism.

course

The detached house at Hafenstrasse 52 was a former seaman's home built in 1893/94 , which was converted into accommodation for asylum seekers in 1985 by the Diakonisches Werk . It was north of Lübeck city center between the Trave and Jerusalemsberg , the property bordered on three streets. The wide front of the house was west of Hafenstrasse, to Konstinstrasse to the north a wide wooden porch with an entrance door was laid out, to Gertrudenstrasse in the east there was a courtyard to which the Eschenburgpark adjoined. To the south, the property bordered on that of the H. & J. Brüggen cereal factory . On the first floor of the house there were office and common rooms as well as a family's apartment. The two upper floors and the top floor were occupied by apartments and bedrooms. On the night of the crime there were 48 people in the house.

The fire broke out on the night of January 18, 1996 between 3:00 and 3:40 a.m. and was reported to the emergency call center at 3:41 a.m. by the resident Françoise Makudila, who died during the call. Another emergency call came in at 3:42 a.m. and was made by a resident who was able to jump from the first floor unharmed and run to the phone booth. The first fire brigade arrived six minutes later, and the fire brigade detected strong sources of fire from outside at various points in the building. Attempts to get in through the porch or entrance failed. Most of the residents on the lower floors were able to save themselves by jumping out of the window, sometimes in the safety cushions , and many of them were seriously injured. The people who had slept upstairs climbed onto the roof, and Monica (Maiamba) Bunga and her seven-year-old daughter Suzanna (Nsuzana) fell. Ms. Bunga died immediately, and the child died a few hours later in the hospital. The others could be brought down from the ledge with an overhead ladder stretched more than ten meters . During the rescue work by the fire brigade, the reserve turntable ladder used by the Lübeck professional fire brigade had an accident , the fully extended ladder pool of which had been forced to be placed on a roof overhang without being secured against running back. Two firefighters and a boy they rescued who were on the ladder at the time, were physically unharmed when the ladder fell to the ground while descending. A total loss occurred on the turntable ladder.

In her apartment on the second floor, 29-year-old Françoise Makudila and her five children Christine, Miya, Christelle, Legrand and Jean-Daniel Makudila burned to death. Seventeen-year-old Rabia El Omari suffocated in another apartment, also on the second floor. He had woken up his family, but could no longer save himself. After the fire was extinguished, the badly burned body of 27-year-old Sylvio Amoussou was found in the porch.

Investigations and Proceedings

The morning after the night of the fire, three young men were arrested in Grevesmühlen, 35 kilometers away , who are said to have a right-wing extremist background. According to witness statements, they were already at the scene of the fire before the fire brigade arrived. Since they were suspicious, the police took their personal details at 3:55 a.m. On the evening of January 18, 1996, a fourth suspect was arrested who had also been in Lübeck the night before with the accused. Late in the evening, a coroner found traces of burns on the faces, hair, eyelashes and eyebrows that could not have been older than 24 hours on this one and on two of those arrested in the morning. After it was stated in an initial fire report that the fire broke out on the first floor and had not been started from outside, and that the men had been noticed at a gas station at 3.19 a.m. and thus had an alibi at the time of the crime, it came the following day for the release of the suspects.

On January 20, 1996, a twenty-year-old Lebanese resident of the house was arrested. He was incriminated by the testimony of a paramedic who stated that the newly accused had confessed to the crime. However, in what were sometimes longer interviews, his testimony was not free from contradictions. Further fire reports, including that of the former Frankfurt fire brigade chief Ernst Achilles , showed that a fire could not be ruled out in the porch of the ground floor, and there was a very good possibility that one or more perpetrators could have penetrated from outside.

The Lebanese man was released on July 2, 1996, as neither sufficient suspicion nor plausible motive could be shown. Nevertheless, the juvenile chamber of the Lübeck Regional Court opened the trial on September 16, 1996 and led it with around 40 days of trial until June 30, 1997. It ended with an acquittal , which the public prosecutor himself had demanded. Also in 1999 before the regional court in Kiel at the request of the co-plaintiff guided revision procedure ended with an acquittal; the wiretapping protocols from the defendant's imprisonment, introduced as evidence, turned out to be relieving and not incriminating.

The investigation against the men from Grevesmühlen, which was closed on August 14, 1996, was not resumed. According to the public prosecutor's office, there is no sufficient suspicion in this direction either. The authorities did not allow the authorities to take any further action in the following years, either because one of these men had repeatedly confessed to the crime and withdrew it.

Allegations against the investigative authorities

In the course of their work, the media, the public and the lawyers of the accused resident made serious allegations against the investigative commission of the Lübeck criminal police and the public prosecutor's office. On the one hand, incriminating traces in the direction of the men from Grevesmühlen were not followed up, on the other hand the inconsistencies in the suspicion against the Lebanese were “filled with fantasy”. Another point of criticism was that the trial had even opened despite the poor evidence.

Dealing with the suspicion against the young people

In fact, there were a number of inconsistencies and contradictions that were never resolved. For example, the prosecutors who decided to release the young people in Grevesmühlen were not informed of the scorch marks on the faces of the accused that had been found the night before. An announcement was made weeks later. The hair samples themselves disappeared within the authorities in the course of the investigation and could no longer be used as evidence.

The youngsters' alibi was based on the information that they were at a gas station fifteen kilometers away on January 18, 1996 at 3.19 a.m. and that the fire started at 3.15 a.m. The start of the fire could never be precisely limited in time, however, and the gas station in question on Padelügger Weg in Lübeck was actually just under six kilometers from the location of the fire, which could therefore be reached in an average of around twelve minutes.

During the interrogation, the suspects had stated that they had driven a Wartburg from Grevesmühlen to Lübeck that night to steal a car or car parts. The theft of a VW Golf GTI took place at around 2 a.m. in Lübeck's Karavellenstrasse, and the car was seized the next day in a forest near Grevesmühlen. The information about the course and the times of the events during the night by the accused were contradictory and in part contradicted those of witnesses who had noticed the young people in Lübeck during the night. In particular, six teenagers were seen in the two vehicles in connection with the car theft. The authorities were accused of not having made any further investigations in this regard and of having arranged comparisons with witnesses.

What was also noticed was a special relationship that investigating police officers had with the fourth suspect, who was arrested in the evening of January 18, 1996, and which the media described as the usual way of dealing with informants . Although named as accomplices of car theft, neither his personal details were recorded in the files, this one was "known" with to, nor has any fingerprinting procedures performed. With regard to this accused, it was stated that he had driven the stolen Golf, so the alibi at the gas station, which concerned three men with a Wartburg, could not apply to him. Nevertheless, this was attributed to him with "inappropriate generosity" - scorch marks had also been found on him.

Dealing with the suspicion against the resident

The suspicion, the further investigations and the opening of the trial against the Lebanese resident were mainly based on the testimony of a paramedic. The accused is said to have uttered the sentence "It was us" and made a confession on the way to the hospital. Accordingly, due to a dispute with a family man living on the first floor of the house, he dumped this gasoline in front of the door and set it on fire. Since a first fire report localized the outbreak of the fire on the first floor, the statement was assessed as knowledge of the perpetrator and the accused was arrested. However, according to none of the partially contradicting fire reports, the fire broke out on a door, and no fire accelerators or traces of gasoline were found on the first floor of the house . In addition, it soon became clear that no father had lived on the first floor. The surviving residents of the house testified that there was no conflict in the community beyond the usual. Nor could it be explained why the Lebanese should have gone into the attic room that he shared with two brothers after the fire started. Like the others, he had to save himself on the roof and he was the last to come down the fire ladder.

The suspect denied having made a confession or "it was us". Rather, like other victims, he assumed that the house had been set on fire by neo-Nazis. At most he could have said "it was them". In the course of the proceedings, several language experts were heard, the paramedic was questioned several times in four-hour interviews with witnesses and ultimately could no longer remember the wording of the alleged confession of the now suspect during the night of the fire, so that the court found that there were differences in the comparison of the statements and to note loopholes that the alleged confession was "not sufficiently proven".

Failures in the investigation into the death of Sylvio Amoussou

Another serious failure of the investigation is seen in the disregard of the circumstances surrounding the death of Sylvio Amoussou, whose wire-wrapped body was found in the porch of the Hafenstrasse building. The autopsy had shown that he had not died from smoke gas poisoning , a clear cause of death could not be determined. The autopsy doctor Manfred Oehmichen saw explanations in an acute death from burns caused by sudden cardiac arrest or a spasm in the larynx . A broken skull as well as splintering of the spinal column could be explained by post-mortem fire, but external violence could not be ruled out. The appraiser recommended calling in another specialist. The public prosecutor's office did not comply with this, on the contrary, Amoussou's body was released for cremation on January 29, 1996 .

The inconsistencies were exacerbated by the fact that Sylvio Amoussou had a relationship with a 29-year-old woman from Lübeck who was deployed and exposed in 1994 as an informant for the Lübeck police in the red light district . She has been exposed to massive threats since then. In December 1995, strangers threw an incendiary device into her apartment. A few days before the attack on the asylum seekers' home, she and Amoussou, who happened to be present, were repeatedly threatened with death.

Suspicion of liaison involvement

The assumption that an undercover agent from the State Criminal Police Office was involved in the case and that the investigation therefore remained inconclusive was taken up several times. After Michael Grube, a member of the right-wing extremist scene in Grevesmühlen, was exposed and convicted of an arson attack on a pizzeria, the PDS parliamentary group asked the Schwerin state parliament whether there was any connection to the arson attack in Lübeck and whether there was constitutional protection or another area of ​​the Home Office was aware of it. After the links between the state authorities and the right-wing terrorist organization National Socialist Underground became known , in 2012 the request was made to re-investigate the case and the allegation that such sloppy investigations would encourage right-wing extremist criminals.

Connections and consequences

The mayor of Lübeck, Michael Bouteiller , had the surviving residents of the house issued with personal documents after the fire. This enabled them to accompany their deceased relatives to the burial in their home countries and then return to Germany. Ekkehard Wienholtz , Schleswig-Holstein's interior minister at the time, then called on Bouteiller to resign as mayor because he had exceeded his powers. Bouteiller was supposed to pay a disciplinary fine, which he resisted. For his deed, Bouteiller was recognized by the IPPNW .

The Nigerian Victor Atoe, seriously injured and traumatized by the arson attack, was deported in May 1996. In 1999 he returned to Germany after the federal government and the Schleswig-Holstein Ministry of the Interior had granted the victims of the Lübeck arson attack a permanent residence permit. In 2007 he was injured again while attempting to deport him. In 2011 he was taken back into custody and released after a hunger strike. He continues to fight for his right to stay . In 2016 he was taken into custody again.

The fire in the asylum seekers' home on Hafenstrasse is part of a whole series of enlightened and unsolved attacks and crimes that took place in Lübeck in the mid-1990s and which had or suggest a right-wing extremist background. On March 25, 1994, an arson attack was carried out on the synagogue . The four perpetrators could be caught, they were seen as followers of the right-wing scene. On May 7, 1995, a second arson attack took place on the synagogue. On June 13, 1995, a letter bomb was sent to the deputy mayor Dietrich Szameit, and an employee of his office was seriously injured when opening it. Szameit had described the 1994 ruling against the arsonists as too mild. The background to the arson attacks on a student dormitory on July 24, 1996, in which a man was killed, as well as on several church buildings, also remained unclear. During these years, swastika smearings also frequently occurred on the Jewish cemetery , on churches and houses of clergy who opposed right-wing extremism, and on the ruins of the fire on Hafenstrasse itself.

The building was demolished in December 1997. In its place there is now a parking lot. A memorial stone in memory of the victims of the arson attack was erected on its edge in 2000. In 2014 the memorial stone was moved to the opposite side of Konstinstraße and in 2015 a bronze plaque was added.

A firefighter employed who was on the overturned turntable ladder and later suffered severe psychological damage as a long-term consequence of his accident, sued in vain for recognition of a work accident after 17 years and the associated compensation.

reception

documentary

In 2003 the filmmakers Katharina Geinitz and Lottie Marsau, convinced of the inaccuracy of the official version, presented their documentary film Tot in Lübeck , in which the Attorney General of Schleswig-Holstein, Erhard Rex, and the lawyer Gabriele Heinecke are questioned. The attorney general's statement that the truth “only God knows, we don't” is the guiding principle at the beginning of the film. The documentary parts are commented on by the cabaret artist Dietrich Kittner , who appears in the film as a morality singer .

Fictional script

The writers Feridun Zaimoglu and Günter Senkel had inspired the events for a fictional screenplay with the title Brandmal (1998) years before the first full-length documentary film . This was not made into a film, but is one of the three works that were awarded the Screenplay Prize of the Schleswig-Holstein Media Foundation in 1998, a forerunner of the Schleswig-Holstein Film Prize and the North German Film Prize.

Radio

  • Rainer Link: Ten dead asylum seekers, no trace of the perpetrators. Reconstruction of a wanted man , Deutschlandfunk Dossier, February 6, 2015

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Memorial plaque in Lübeck smeared with Nazi symbols
  2. ↑ https://hafenstrasse96.org/
  3. ↑ Panorama - die Reporter: Die Brandnacht , NDR , January 19, 2016
  4. ^ Andreas Juhnke: Fire source. The tenfold murder of Lübeck: A criminal case becomes a political issue , Berlin 1998, p. 14
  5. ^ Andreas Juhnke: Fire source. The tenfold murder of Lübeck: A criminal case becomes a political issue , Berlin 1998, p. 32
  6. ↑ Chief fire chief H. Blunk (professional fire brigade Lübeck): Accident - 1996.01.18 - DE-SH - Lübeck. Drehleiter.info, September 9, 2005, accessed on May 4, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Burn marks on the face . In: Der Spiegel . No. 23 , 1996, pp. 84-91 ( online - June 3, 1996 ).
  8. ↑ Lübecker Stadtzeitung: The attack will not be forgotten. The tenth anniversary of the night of death in Hafenstrasse , article from January 17, 2006 , accessed on October 23, 2012
  9. ↑ Der Spiegel: Truth Will Overtake Him , article from June 9, 1997 , accessed on January 2, 2015
  10. ↑ focus.de: KOBRA-3D has determined , article from August 12, 1996 , accessed on October 23, 2012
  11. ^ Spiegel online: Lübeck arson attack. Safwan Eid acquitted again , article November 2, 1999 , accessed October 23, 2012
  12. ↑ Der Spiegel: It just happened , article from July 13, 1998 , accessed on October 23, 2012
  13. ↑ Wolf-Dieter Vogel: The Lübeck arson attack. Facts, questions, parallels to a judicial scandal , Berlin 2001, p. 34
  14. ^ Andreas Juhnke: Fire source. The tenfold murder of Lübeck: A criminal case becomes a political issue , Berlin 1998, p. 66
  15. ↑ google route planner Padelügger Weg 41 / Hafenstrasse (note: the Eric-Warburg bridge can only be used from 2008), accessed on January 3, 2015
  16. ↑ Wolf-Dieter Vogel: The Lübeck arson attack. Facts, questions, parallels to a judicial scandal , Berlin 2001, p. 15 f.
  17. ^ Andreas Juhnke: Fire source. The tenfold murder of Lübeck: A criminal case becomes a political issue , Berlin 1998, p. 63
  18. ^ Andreas Juhnke: Fire source. The tenfold murder of Lübeck: A criminal case becomes a political issue , Berlin 1998, p. 79 ff.
  19. ↑ Die Welt: Paramedics: Vengeance was a motive for arson attack , article from September 24, 1996 , accessed on January 2, 2015
  20. ↑ Berliner Zeitung: Survivor collapses in court in Lübeck , article from September 26, 1996 , accessed on January 2, 2015
  21. ^ Decision of the youth chamber of the Lübeck regional court of July 2, 1996, quoted from: Andreas Juhnke: Brandherd. The tenfold murder of Lübeck: A criminal case becomes a political issue , Berlin 1998, p. 31 f.
  22. ↑ Wolf-Dieter Vogel: The Lübeck arson attack. Facts, questions, parallels to a judicial scandal , Berlin 2001, p. 145
  23. ↑ Der Spiegel: Arson attack. Britta and the detectives , article April 7, 1997 , accessed October 23, 2012
  24. ↑ Die Zeit: Spy of the Prosecution , article from January 24, 2002 , accessed on October 24, 2012
  25. ^ Fire in Hafenstrasse: Bouteiller calls for clarification , Lübecker Nachrichten of January 17, 2014, accessed on January 18, 2016
  26. ↑ Wolf-Dieter Vogel: The investigative work of the police encourages right-wing extremist offenders. Just not a right trace! , in: taz of August 6, 2012 , accessed on October 24, 2012
  27. ↑ Mart-Jan Knoche: Victor Atoe jumps . In: The daily newspaper . April 11, 2007, ISSN  0931-9085 , p. 22 ( taz.de [accessed on January 18, 2021]).
  28. ↑ Victor Atoe: 20 years of struggle for a right to stay (PDF; 213 kB) Schleswig-Holstein Refugee Council, Der Schlepper 57/58, 12/2011
  29. ↑ Kai Dordowsky: Hafenstrasse Victims in Detention , Lübecker Nachrichten , 14 January 2016
  30. ^ Andreas Juhnke: Fire source. The tenfold murder of Lübeck: A criminal case becomes a political issue , Berlin 1998, p. 209 ff.
  31. ^ Reminder about arson attacks in Lübeck
  32. ^ Janine Kühl: Shock in Lübeck: The synagogue burns in 1994 , NDR , March 24, 2014
  33. ↑ Janine Kühl: Shock in Lübeck: 1994 burns the synagogue , page 2, NDR , March 24, 2014
  34. ↑ Memorial stone for the victims of the Lübeck arson attack , website "Art in Public Space Lübeck"
  35. ↑ Firefighter receives no money after being used in the port road fire in 1996. In: Lübecker Nachrichten Online. August 30, 2018, accessed May 4, 2020 .
  36. ↑ BVerwG 2 C 18.17, judgment of August 30, 2018 | Federal Administrative Court. Retrieved May 4, 2020 .
  37. ↑ Tot in Lübeck , absolutely on demand , accessed on January 19, 2016
  38. ↑ Ten dead asylum seekers, no trace of the perpetrators. Reconstruction of a manhunt , Deutschlandfunk , February 6, 2015
  39. ^ Rainer Link: Ten dead asylum seekers, no trace of the perpetrators , broadcast manuscript Deutschlandfunk 2015

Coordinates: 53 ° 52 '53 "  N , 10 ° 41' 33"  E