Achidi John dies

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The death Achidi John took place on 12 December 2001 in Hamburg . Achidi John died of a combination of a serious heart defect, cocaine use and the stress of emetics. Four days earlier, Achidi John had been forcibly given an emetic to secure evidence of suspected drug trafficking against him.

At the political level, the case led to the administration of emetics in Berlin and Lower Saxony being stopped. In Bremen, the Greens applied to end the practice of using emetics. The request was rejected. Bremen stopped the use of emetics in 2005 after the similar death of Laya-Alama Condé . In memory of the fall, the place in front of the Rote Flora is called in the left-hand scene and colloquially also called Achidi-John-Platz .

prehistory

In July 2000 the Nigerian Michael Paul Nwabuisi applied for asylum in the Federal Republic of Germany in Jena. He pretended to be a Cameroonian citizen with the name "Achidi John", born on January 6, 1982. The authorities assigned Achidi John to shared accommodation in Ellrich in September 2000 . In the asylum procedure, Achidi John stated, among other things, that he had threatened death as a human sacrifice in Cameroon and that he had come directly to Hamburg on a ship when he escaped. In January 2001, the asylum application was rejected as unfounded because the alleged information from Achidi John could not be confirmed.

In the following time Achidi John was arrested five times by the Hamburg police for suspected drug trafficking; but since the trade could not be proven to him, he was released each time.

Use of emetics against Achidi John

On the morning of December 8, 2001, the 19-year-old was picked up by civil investigators in the St. Georg district "on suspicion of drug trafficking [...] and immediately taken to the forensic medicine department at Eppendorf University Hospital (UKE)". He fiercely opposed the introduction of a nasogastric tube to introduce the emetic ipecacuanha , on which he was fixated. John was then "forcibly injected through a tube into his nose" by a doctor. “An anesthetist for an emergency was not called to help.” Then “he fell to the floor”, “The color of his face had changed, breathing and pulse had stopped.” After three minutes, two emergency medical teams tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate John. John died on December 12, 2001.

In the intensive care unit, Achidi John had 41 bullets of crack and cocaine removed from the gastrointestinal tract. The autopsy found four more balls of drugs in his intestines.

Achidi John's autopsy was carried out on December 13, 2001 by the Forensic Medicine Institute of the Free University of Berlin. According to the autopsy report, a combination of a serious heart defect, use of cocaine, and the stress of giving emetics resulted in Achidi John's death.

Responses from the judiciary

The public prosecutor's office closed a preliminary investigation against those involved in the use of emetics in June 2002. A subsequent enforcement procedure by Achidi John's father was rejected by the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court in July 2003.

The Federal Constitutional Court issued a press release the day after Achidi John's death. It was pointed out that up to this point in time there had not been a decision on whether the administration of so-called emetics was compatible with the constitution. Only in 1999 a constitutional complaint was not accepted for decision because of the principle of subsidiarity . It was stated that "the use of emetics [...] with regard to human dignity [...] and freedom from self-incriminations [...] does not [meet] any fundamental constitutional concerns". An assessment with regard to the "protection of physical integrity [...] and the proportionality of the interference" was not made.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Marco Carini : classified information about emetic death. In: taz . February 14, 2002, accessed May 24, 2016 .
  2. ↑ Jean-Philipp Baeck : No excuse for torture. In: taz . September 16, 2013, accessed May 24, 2016 .
  3. ↑ Philip Volkmann-Schluck: From flora circles and monarchy spectacles. In: Hamburger Abendblatt . April 30, 2011, accessed May 25, 2016 .
  4. ↑ Ove Sutter: Failure as a jump. Jungle World , January 19, 2005; accessed September 11, 2017 .
  5. ↑ a b c d Johannes Schweikle : Dealen. Death of a drug dealer. In: Greenpeace magazine . August 2012, archived from the original on August 27, 2017 ; accessed on August 27, 2017 .
  6. ↑ a b c d Kai von Appen : The death of Achidi John. In: taz . April 30, 2010, accessed May 22, 2016 .
  7. ↑ Gernot Knödler : The monopoly of death. In: taz . October 27, 2015, accessed May 22, 2016 .
  8. ↑ Fredrik Roggan : Fatal emetic use in Hamburg. In: Civil Rights & Police / CILIP . January 2002, accessed June 4, 2016 .
  9. ↑ a b Elke Spanner : Incident without consequences. In: taz . December 7, 2002, accessed May 24, 2016 .
  10. ↑ "death of 19-year Achidi J. by emetics," AZ: 2 Ws 3.31. Hanseatic Higher Regional Court, July 31, 2003, archived from the original on September 16, 2017 ; accessed on September 16, 2017 .
  11. ↑ Kai von Appen : Too late for the dead. In: taz . July 13, 2006, accessed September 10, 2017 .
  12. ↑ "On the use of emetics", press release No. 116/2001. Federal Constitutional Court, December 13, 2001, accessed on September 10, 2017 .