Seda Başay-Yıldız

Seda Başay-Yıldız (* 1976 in Marburg ) is a German lawyer . She became known as the attorney for the accessory prosecution for Enver Şimşek's family in the NSU trial . Since August 2018, she has received a series of death threats signed " NSU 2.0 " and containing data from computers belonging to the Hessen police .

education

Başay-Yıldız was born in Marburg and grew up there. She studied law in Frankfurt am Main and has been working in a law firm there since 2003.

NSU trial

From 2013 to 2018, Başay-Yıldız represented the family of Enver Şimşek before the Munich Higher Regional Court , whom the right-wing terrorist group National Socialist Underground (NSU) had murdered on September 11, 2000 as the first of nine victims of the Ceska series of murders for racist motives. The five-year trial did not clarify the main questions of their clients, namely which accomplices the murderers had at the respective crime scenes, who had selected the individual victims and why. In the process, she accused the investigators of serious investigative errors and criticized that traces of the support network of the NSU trio and possible accomplices had not been investigated. She called for further investigations after a judgment and also to open the files of the constitution protection .

In a foreword in 2019 took Basay-Yıldız their criticism together on racism in German security authorities: this, not just the right-wing terrorists had that in the investigation to Ceska-killing spree human dignity violated the dead and their families and their constitution broken -Order. "For years, police officers claimed to the public and the bereaved that they were adulterers, people and drug traffickers." They had suspected the murder victims of being to blame for their own death. Despite regional differences, the prosecutors of all federal states were in agreement: “They followed up every distant and absurd reference to alleged connections between the victims and organized crime or a connection between the victims with great expenditure of time and personnel. References from witnesses to suspects described as German-looking, however, were as good as not pursued. Despite the information from relatives, a racist motive was not even seriously considered in any of the murder cases and investigated in this direction. ”This one-sided direction of investigation can only be explained by racist prejudices in the police apparatus about the origin of the victims. This is not an accusation of guilt against individual civil servants: "Rather, racism manifests itself in processes, attitudes and behaviors that lead to discrimination and disadvantage people through unconscious prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotypes." After the perpetrators were discovered, the authorities of the Uncertainty among migrants in Germany had to be consistently countered: “An unconditional clarification of the role of the intelligence services and law enforcement authorities would have been necessary. Because it was only through their actions that they made the crimes of the NSU possible. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution itself prevented the investigation by shredding files and open lies. The authorities have systematically broken the promise to clarify ”, for example by narrowing the investigation down to the thesis of an NSU trio and by not releasing files. This behavior is "a free ticket for the right-wing scene. Networks were not identified because there were supposedly none. ”The investigation errors are not isolated cases, but a structural problem:“ The state loses its credibility if it does not crack down on right-wing extremist officials and remove them from service without any ifs or buts. ”Only in this way the lost trust of many migrants in the same protection provided by the German police can be restored. In view of the current hostility, exclusion and threats to people as non-Germans, it is important: “We have to take a stand and defend our basic values ​​more than ever. Anyone who does not do that is complicit. "

Other clients

In several trials, Başay-Yıldız helped people to obtain legal protection who had been prejudiced by public opinion as terrorists . Until May 2018 she defended Haikel S., the German security authorities as a suspected terrorist troublemaker , had classified successfully against his deportation to his home country Tunisia . As a result, she received anonymous threats. She sees these not only as attacks on her person, but on the rule of law , and publicly made it clear: “Our fundamental rights apply to everyone. I am amazed that this matter of course has to be addressed at all, that the rule of law applies to all citizens. ” Populist statements by politicians like Horst Seehofer and Alexander Dobrindt (both CSU ), who portrayed German lawyers as part of an“ anti-deportation industry ” had, contribute to this: "We lawyers, organs of the administration of justice, suddenly become enemies."

In the summer of 2018, she defended Sami A. , a suspected bodyguard of Osama bin Laden , against his illegal deportation at the time. She accused politics of producing "a success story at the expense of the rule of law". Her clients also include the Salafist Biallo G., who played a key role in organizing a distribution of the Koran and was sentenced to 38 months' imprisonment by the Frankfurt am Main Regional Court for aiding and abetting a serious, state-endangering act of violence. Başay-Yıldız is also the lawyer for Malik F., who is accused of advertising for the Islamist terrorist militia Islamic State in an ongoing trial . In all of these cases, she advocates the rule of law, which also guarantees terrorist suspects the right to a fair trial.

Death threats

→ Main article : NSU 2.0

On August 2, 2018, Başay-Yıldız received a fax with death threats against her and her then two-year-old daughter. The anonymous author or authors insulted her as a “lousy Turkish pig”, threatened that their daughter would be “slaughtered” in “ retaliation ” and signed with “NSU 2.0”. This apparently related to her legal work in the NSU trial. After her criminal complaint, other Frankfurt police officers found that a police officer had called up the lawyer’s personal data from the computer of the first police station in Frankfurt am Main shortly before the time it was sent. Via their mobile phones, the investigators came across a chat group in which other police officers from that precinct had exchanged right-wing extremist messages.

The process only became known through press reports from December 10, 2018. The Hesse State Criminal Police Office then took over the further investigations. On December 20, 2018, one day after a meeting of the interior committee of the Hessian state parliament on the matter, Başay-Yıldız received a second fax signed "NSU 2.0", which now threatened her husband and parents as well as her daughter. Here, too, the data could only come from official registration registers. This letter too did not become known until months later through press reports. At the end of February and beginning of March 2019, she received the third and fourth threatening faxes of the same type.

At the center of the investigation were five police officers from the Frankfurt Revier, including two brothers from Kirtorf . Right-wing extremist statements and references, but no connection with the threatening letters, could be proven. In the course of the proceedings, it became known that between 2015 and May 2019 at least 38 internal proceedings had been initiated against right-wing extremist police officers in Hesse. From January 2019 onwards, hundreds and then at the end of March 2019 around 2000 people demonstrated in solidarity with Başay-Yıldız in front of the Frankfurt police station. On June 5, 2019, Başay-Yıldız received another death threat by fax. This referred to ex-district president Walter Lübcke , who had been murdered three days earlier on June 2, 2019 .

According to some reports, Başay-Yıldız had received more than a dozen threatening emails from the same sender by July 2020. Numerous officers had access to the computer in the first Frankfurt police station.

The case was also covered by British newspapers such as The Guardian , The Daily Telegraph , The Independent and others.

In December 2019, Seda Başay-Yıldız stated in an interview: Extremism in the public service should have been discussed in society much earlier. Right attitudes and racism in the authorities were also shown in the investigation of the NSU. So far, you do not see that the investigators are working on this themselves. After the first threatening email against her, a Frankfurt official quickly investigated his own colleagues. She now feels adequately protected and trusts that everything will be done to clarify the situation. Even if the originators of the threatening emails are not found, do not be intimidated. She was not surprised that many right-wing extremist Hessian police officers were discovered in the course of the investigation: “We have had a problem with right-wing extremism in this country for a long time, why should the police be an exception? What I couldn't understand at all is that no one should have noticed these things beforehand. ”Every right-wing extremist officer must be dismissed and prosecuted as a criminal offense. This is the only way to restore the trust of all citizens in the police. This had already suffered severely from the migrants affected by racism as a result of the NSU trial. The fact that Peter Beuth only spoke of a “caesura” when Walter Lübcke was murdered was “a slap in the face, for example for the Simseks. Does a 'bio-German' politician have to die before we can talk about a turning point? "

Individual evidence

1. ↑ A lawyer wrestles with the rule of law - and for the rule of law - Allgemeine Zeitung. Allgemeine Zeitung, October 7, 2017
2. ↑ Ronen Steinke: The trail leads to the police. Süddeutsche Zeitung, December 16, 2018
3. ^ ^{A b} Danijel Majic: Seda Basay-Yildiz: Fight against the state racism. Frankfurter Rundschau, December 18, 2018
4. ↑ Pitt von Bebenburg, Hanning Voigts: "NSU 2.0": The Hessian police scandal. In: Matthias Meisner, Heike Kleffner (eds.): Extreme security. Right-wing extremists in the police, the protection of the constitution, the armed forces and the judiciary. Herder, Freiburg 2019, pp. 131–146, here p. 134
5. ^ NSU trial - The pain of Abdulkerim Simsek. Deutschlandfunk January 13, 2018
6. ↑ Seda Basay-Yildiz: When the dignity of the people is touched by the state authority. In: Matthias Meisner, Heike Kleffner (Eds.): Extreme Sicherheit , Freiburg 2019, pp. 24–28
7. ↑ Pitt von Bebenburg, Hanning Voigts: "NSU 2.0" , in: Matthias Meisner, Heike Kleffner (eds.): Extreme Sicherheit , Freiburg 2019, p. 134 f .; Annette Ramelsberger: Right-wing extremism: "The perpetrators want to intimidate me, but I will not give up". Süddeutsche Zeitung, January 14, 2019.
8. ↑ Pitt von Bebenburg, Hanning Voigts: "NSU 2.0" , in: Matthias Meisner, Heike Kleffner (eds.): Extreme Sicherheit , Freiburg 2019, pp. 131-133.
9. ↑ Pitt von Bebenburg, Hanning Voigts: "NSU 2.0" , in: Matthias Meisner, Heike Kleffner (eds.): Extreme Sicherheit , Freiburg 2019, p. 143.
10. ↑ Pitt von Bebenburg, Hanning Voigts: "NSU 2.0" , in: Matthias Meisner, Heike Kleffner (eds.): Extreme Sicherheit , Freiburg 2019, pp. 136-144.
11. ^ After the Lübcke murder: further threatening letters to a Frankfurt lawyer emerged. Hessenschau, September 16, 2019
12. ↑ Matthias Bartsch: Drohschreiben to left politician: home address, interrogated by police computer. Spiegel Online, July 9, 2020
13. ^ Josie Le Blond: Five German police suspended over neo-Nazi threat to lawyer. The Guardian, December 17, 2018; Jorg Luyken: Frankfurt police officers investigated over 'forming neo-Nazi cell'. Telegraph.uk, December 16, 2018; Harry Cockburn: 'Far-right cell' in German police 'threatened to kill lawyer's two-year-old daughter'. The Independent, December 17, 2018
14. ↑ Hanning Vogts: One year NSU 2.0: Seda Basay-Yildiz: “I'm not afraid of anyone”. FRI, December 13, 2019