Death of Khaled Idris Bahray

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Vigil for Khaled Bahray, Dresden, Jorge-Gomondai-Platz
Vigil for Khaled Bahray, Dresden, Jorge-Gomondai-Platz

The death of Khaled Idris Bahray was a violent crime that an asylum seeker from Eritrea fell victim to on January 12, 2015 in Dresden . The case gained particular prominence because it was first speculated about a racist background to the crime. The case was resolved after a few days. On January 22, 2015, Hassan S., a 26-year-old Eritrean roommate in Bahray, confessed to stabbing the victim. The reason for the act was an escalating dispute over the housekeeping.

Before that, there were rallies and vigils, but also allegations against the Dresden police with regard to the quality of the investigative work, which were rejected as unjustified by the authorities involved.

On November 6, 2015, the Dresden Regional Court sentenced S. to five years in prison for manslaughter and certified that the police had carried out an impeccable investigation. The Federal Court of Justice overturned the judgment and referred the matter back to the Regional Court. In a second hearing in July 2017, S. approved self-defense for the first, fatal stitches and sentenced him to two years and three months' imprisonment for the following stitches on those who were still alive for dangerous bodily harm. He was released from pretrial detention at the beginning of 2017.

Khaled Idris Bahray

According to research by the Tagesschau, Khaled Idris Bahray, 20 at the time of the crime, was born in Keren in the interior of Eritrea. When he was five years old, his mother fled with him and his sister to Wadi Halfa in Sudan . In 2014, Bahray decided to immigrate to Europe with a cousin . Via Libya he reached Sicily with the help of tugs across the sea ; his cousin drowned on the crossing. In August 2014 he reached an initial reception center in Munich . From there he was housed first in Chemnitz , then in Schneeberg and finally in Dresden. Since September 2014 he has been living with other Eritrean immigrants in an apartment provided by the City of Dresden in a prefabricated building in the Leubnitz-Neuostra district .

Course of action and investigation

Finding the body and conducting a police investigation

On Monday, January 12, 2015, Bahray is said to have left his apartment around 8 p.m., allegedly to go shopping in a supermarket 100 meters away. He did not return. The following morning around 7:40 a.m., his body was found by a local resident in the courtyard of the settlement. An emergency doctor officially determined that Bahray had died from a non-natural cause, but could not see any signs of outside interference. The police called in assumed a fall from a window as the cause of death and suspected an accident or suicide. Since no evidence was found at this point that Bahray could have been the victim of a crime, no forensic investigation was initially carried out. However, an autopsy was ordered.

The autopsy on the morning of January 14th revealed that the body had knife wounds in the neck and upper body of Bahray, whereupon a homicide squad of 25 officers began to secure traces at the location and in the apartment of the victim, to evaluate videos from public transport and to assign possible witnesses consult.

Criticism of the police's actions

Since the crime scene the police was only 30 hours after finding the corpse on site, Member of Parliament filed Volker Beck (Alliance 90 / The Greens) criminal charges on suspicion of obstruction of justice in office . The Bund Deutscher Kriminalbeamter then asked the Berlin public prosecutor's office to examine the extent to which Beck's report complied with the criminal offenses of false suspicion, defamation and insult. In his report to the police, Beck alleged a deliberate breach of law. After the preliminary conclusion of the investigation and the arrest of the alleged perpetrator, the General Secretary of the CDU Saxony , Michael Kretschmer , asked Beck to apologize; However, this maintained his criticism of the police work.

Before the investigation was concluded, some media had criticized the police's handling of the case as a “nasty scandal” that “completely ruined Dresden's reputation” and described it as a “Dresden GAU ” or “very clumsy”. There was also talk of “provocative nonchalance” of the police in dealing with the crime against Bahray.

The NSU co-plaintiff lawyer Mehmet Daimagüler criticized the police work in the Bahray case as “unbelievable sloppiness” that must have “personal consequences”. During the investigations into the murders of the NSU (before they were investigated as part of its uncovering), the guideline frequently applied in the police was “that a migrant victim must not be a victim”. He wondered whether “ there would have been the same sloppiness if the victim had been a common man, or if it wasn't more easy to assume that a dark-skinned asylum seeker must have been an accident… if you live in a city , in which 20,000 to 25,000 xenophobes take to the streets every week, this must lead to being particularly vigilant. The investigation is now made much more difficult because the evidence can no longer be properly secured. I am shocked by this kind of work. "

Completion of the investigation, trial and judgment

On January 22, 2015, the Dresden public prosecutor announced that a 26-year-old roommate in Bahray, Hassan S., also from Eritrea, had been issued an arrest warrant for manslaughter . He has made a confession and is in custody. A knife seized in the course of securing evidence in the inner courtyard of the prefabricated housing estate could be identified as a murder weapon through DNA traces of both the victim and the alleged perpetrator. According to the public prosecutor's office, the motive was a dispute over housekeeping.

The initiative in memory of Oury Jalloh had a second autopsy of the body carried out on January 23, 2015 at the Charité in Berlin and requested access to the files.

On November 6, 2015, the Dresden Regional Court sentenced S. to five years in prison for manslaughter . At the same time, the court certified that the police had carried out an impeccable investigation. On a revision of the defense, the judgment of the Dresden Regional Court was overturned by decision of the Federal Court of Justice of June 22, 2016. The Federal Court of Justice complained that the regional court had erred in law and deemed it unnecessary to use the knife to ward off Khaled Idris.

Speculation about xenophobic background and reactions

Between the time the body was found and the arrest of a suspect, the case met with wide coverage, including in national and international media. Since the act happened on a Monday, there was speculation in several media about a temporal connection with the demonstrations by " Pegida " and the resulting mood in the city.

According to the AWO social worker who looked after Bahray and his roommates, they had already reported a few days before the crime that their apartment door had been kicked, as well as of swastika smearings in the hallway or on their apartment door. They were also threatened and verbally abused. The social worker had filed a complaint three days before Bahray's death. Last but not least, the perpetrator had indicated at an earlier interrogation as a witness that he suspected a racist background. Based on this information, there was speculation in the media about a xenophobic background to the crime.

Commemoration in the inner courtyard of the prefabricated buildings on Johannes-Paul-Thilman-Straße
Demonstration in Dresden on January 17, 2015 in front of the state parliament on Devrientstrasse
Demonstration train in Dresden on January 17, 2015 on the way to the Carolabrücke

Saxony

On the afternoon of January 14, a spontaneous vigil of around 200 refugees and people showing solidarity took place at Jorge-Gomondai- Platz in Dresden . This led to a spontaneous demonstration that took place in front of the Albertinum in Dresden to confront Prime Minister Stanislaw Tillich (CDU) who was present there with the events, and who organized a New Year's reception there under the motto “From all over the world - at home in Saxony”. Tillich did not appear, but the Saxon Minister of Integration Petra Köpping (SPD) spoke to the demonstrators for a short time.

On January 15, around 600 to 800 people, including autonomous people, gathered in Leipzig for a spontaneous demonstration against Pegida and to clarify the death of Khaled Bahray. Some of the demonstrators sprayed graffiti, smashed windows and attacked police officers with stones. The Leipzig police chief Bernd Merbitz spoke of "terrifying excesses of violence". The police took the personal details of around 150 to 200 people and, on the orders of the Leipzig public prosecutor, confiscated their cell phones and individual laptops; two people were arrested. This approach was criticized because the actual perpetrators, who made up a small part of the demonstration, had already disappeared before the police arrived.

The roommates of Bahray, who had previously been housed with him in Schneeberg - including S., who was later convicted as a perpetrator - initially stated after the crime that they wanted to be relocated to another federal state because they were no longer in Saxony felt safe. After talking to the city, they decided to stay for the time being.

The Dresden Police President was asked about the investigation by the Saxon Interior Committee.

The Saxon state parliament member Juliane Nagel (Die Linke) demanded that the police “carefully examine a possible racist motivation”, which in other cases of murder or manslaughter in Saxony “had been ruled out early despite numerous indications”.

The “Network Asylum, Migration, Refugee” (NAMF) sees further mistakes by the Dresden police in dealing with possible racist attacks during the Monday Pegida demonstrations and calls for the resignation of the Saxon Interior Minister Markus Ulbig .

On Saturday, January 17, 2015, a demonstration with 3500 participants took place in Dresden in memory of Bahray, from Jorge-Gomondai-Platz over the Carolabrücke to the interim rally at the police headquarters on Schießgasse and further over the Frauenkirche until shortly before the state parliament pulled. The Bernhard-von-Lindenau-Platz in front of the state parliament - as the planned last stop of the demonstration - was cordoned off by a hundred police officers, which is why the final rally was held on the streets of Terrassenufer and Am Zwingerteich .

Nationwide

In Mannheim and Lübeck , thousands also took to the streets on January 17, 2015 to commemorate Khaled Bahrays and to set an example for respect and tolerance.

On January 18, a memorial demonstration for Bahray took place in Berlin under the motto “Against the normal racist state”. On the same day there was a vigil on the subject at Luisenplatz in Potsdam. Participants in both events expressed criticism of the investigations by the Saxon police and of “Pegida”, which refugees and migrants felt particularly threatened in Dresden.

On January 24, 2015, Bahray was buried in the Gatow landscape cemetery in Berlin according to the Islamic rite. About 250 people took part in the funeral procession, including Dresden's integration officer Kristina Winkler and the security policy spokesman for the left-wing parliamentary group in the Berlin House of Representatives, Hakan Taş .

International

The events were covered in international media such as The Guardian , The Times , Al Jazeera , Time and The Independent .

The Russian Sputnik News , the Turkish TimeTurk and other Turkish media, the Polish Wprost and tv24 and the Maltese Malta Today reported .

Elizabeth Chyrum, director of the UK-based human rights organization Human Rights Concern Eritrea, sent an open letter to the German Justice Minister Heiko Maas on the occasion of the crime against Bahray , in which she made serious allegations against the investigative work of the German police. "In view of the demonstrations against migrants and Muslims in Dresden" she had "little doubt that Mr. Bahray is a victim of these extremists".

Web links

Commons : Khaled Idris Bahray  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Court: Khaled was killed in self-defense . Report of the Stuttgarter Zeitung of July 12, 2017.
  2. ↑ a b Death of an Asylum Seeker: Who Was Khaled Bahray? ( Memento from January 15, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), tagesschau.de Internet portal, January 15, 2015
  3. ↑ a b Killed asylum seeker: Green politician Beck reports Dresden police. , in: Stern Magazin online, January 15, 2015
  4. ^ A b Jörg Meyer: Asylum seekers killed in Dresden . In: Neues Deutschland , January 15, 2015
  5. ↑ Refugee in Dresden was killed. . Time online , January 14, 2015
  6. ↑ Public Prosecutor's Office: No investigation mishaps in the case of the killed refugee Khaled I. In: LVZ Online. January 22, 2015, accessed January 22, 2015 .
  7. ^ Anneke Müller: Dead asylum seeker: Was it a crime after all? ( Memento from January 15, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), Mopo24.de (Dresdner Morgenpost online), January 14, 2015
  8. ↑ a b c d Stefan Locke: Asylum seeker stabbed to death: Many open questions . In: FAZ , January 15, 2015.
  9. ↑ 20-year-old asylum seeker found dead in Dresden. ( Memento from January 15, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Mopo24.de (Dresdner Morgenpost online), January 13, 2015
  10. ↑ Asylum seeker died from multiple knife wounds! ( Memento from January 15, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), Mopo24.de (Dresdner Morgenpost online), January 14, 2015
  11. ↑ a b Manuel Stark: Dresden police admit mistakes . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , January 15, 2015
  12. ↑ Matthias Kernstock: Dead asylum seekers! Bundestag politician reports Dresden police. ( Memento from January 15, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Mopo24.de (Dresdner Morgenpost online), January 15, 2015
  13. ^ Investigations against Volker Beck after reporting against the Dresden police: BDK asks the public prosecutor's office for a criminal investigation. bdk.de Internet portal, January 19, 2015
  14. ↑ Jens Eumann: Flatmate is said to have stabbed Khaled Idris B. to death in an argument , Freie Presse, January 22, 2015
  15. ↑ Silke Müller: Khaleds death, Dresden's GAU. , in: Stern Magazin online, January 16, 2015
  16. ↑ a b The story of the refugee who died in Dresden. ( Memento from January 17, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), Mopo24.de (Dresdner Morgenpost online), January 16, 2015
  17. ^ Areas of inactivity and provocative nonchalance in Dresden . In: Berliner Zeitung , January 16, 2015
  18. ↑ "First of all, no sacrifice". , in: Junge Welt, January 17, 2015
  19. ↑ Markus Decker, Timur Tinç: Too many questions in Dresden. , in: Frankfurter Rundschau online, January 16, 2015
  20. ^ A b c Yasemin Ergin, Stefan Locke: Funeral meal with a suspect , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, January 23, 2015
  21. ↑ Khaled's roommate killed . Sächsische.de, January 22, 2015
  22. ↑ Khaled B. is said to have killed roommate . Stern.de, January 22, 2015
  23. ↑ Roommate is said to have stabbed asylum seekers . Welt Online, January 22, 2015
  24. ^ A b Katrin Bischoff: Killed asylum seeker from Dresden buried in Berlin . In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung , January 24, 2015
  25. ↑ Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk Sachsen: Khaled trial, 5 years imprisonment for manslaughter. In: mdr.de (MDR-online). November 6, 2015, archived from the original on November 17, 2015 ; accessed on November 6, 2015 .
  26. ^ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: Death of the refugee Khaled: B. Five years imprisonment for asylum seekers for manslaughter. In: faz.net (FAZ-online). November 6, 2015, accessed November 12, 2015 .
  27. ↑ Federal Court of Justice, decision of June 22, 2016 - 5 StR 138/16
  28. ↑ The Khaled Trial is being reopened. In: sächsische.de. Retrieved November 23, 2018 .
  29. ↑ The wrong perpetrator in the daily newspaper of January 25, 2015, accessed January 29, 2015. Among other things, with the following questions: Was the demonstration a week ago really about grief and solidarity? Or the instrumentalization of a murdered person for your own political purposes?
  30. ↑ a b Asylum seeker Khaled I stabbed to death: Swastikas on the door of the victim , Der Tagesspiegel , January 15, 2015
  31. ↑ Jan David Sutthoff: Dresden: Refugee found dead on his doorstep after Pegida demo - is there a connection? , Huffington Post, Jan. 14, 2015
  32. ↑ Killed refugee: A false suspicion with consequences . In: FAZ , January 28, 2015
  33. ↑ Steffen Winter: Dresden: The Enigmatic Death of Khaled I , in: Spiegel Online, January 14, 2015
  34. ↑ a b c Murder of a refugee in Dresden. , addn.me internet portal, December 15, 2015
  35. ↑ Carolin Fröhlich: Was the confiscation of cell phones legally acceptable? In: Mdr Info. January 21, 2015, archived from the original on January 21, 2015 ; accessed on January 21, 2015 .
  36. ↑ Violence and Destruction! 600 rioters devastate Leipzig. In: mopo24.de (Leipziger Morgenpost Online). January 16, 2015, archived from the original on January 20, 2015 ; accessed on February 22, 2015 .
  37. ↑ Robert Weinhold: The feeling of doing the right thing , taz.de, January 16, 2015
  38. ^ Robert Nößler: Massive cell phone seizure in Leipzig: Demo participants defend themselves against the police. In: lvz-online.de. January 19, 2015, accessed January 29, 2015 .
  39. ↑ Steffi Bobmeier: Dresden: Friends of killed asylum seekers want to leave Saxony. , Die Zeit , January 16, 2015
  40. ↑ Flatmates of the dead Khaled B. stay in the prefabricated building. In: New Germany. January 20, 2015, accessed January 21, 2015 .
  41. ↑ a b Dresden: Thousands commemorate the stabbed asylum seeker. , in: Zeit Online , January 17, 2015
  42. ^ Dresden: Several thousand remember Khaled. , in: Neues Deutschland, January 17, 2015
  43. ↑ "Who killed Khaled?" - 3500 people in Dresden remember murdered Eritreans. , in: LVZ online, January 17, 2015
  44. ^ Mourning for dead asylum seeker Khaled Bahray. , in: RBB, January 18, 2015
  45. ↑ Dead asylum seeker: Refugee Khaled Idris Bahray buried in Berlin ( memento from March 12, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), mdr.de, January 24, 2015
  46. ↑ Kate Connolly: Police investigate death of Eritrean man in Dresden. , in: The Guardian, January 14, 2015
  47. ↑ German police study asylum seeker's death. , in: The Times Europe, January 16, 2015
  48. ↑ Eritrean man stabbed to death in German city. , in: Al Jazeera, January 16, 2015
  49. ↑ Naina Bajekal: German Police Investigate Murder of Eritrean Refugee in Dresden. , in: Time Magazine, Jan. 15, 2015
  50. ^ Moroccan man in France killed at home in front of wife in 'horrible Islamophobic attack'. , in: The Independent, January 18, 2015, report on Khaled Idris Bahray further down in the article
  51. ^ Refugee Murder in German Anti-Islam Hotbed Sparks Tension. , in: Sputnik News, January 15, 2015
  52. ↑ Almanya'da Eritreli sığınmacı Ölü bulundu. , in: Time Turk, January 14, 2015
  53. ↑ Niemcy: Erytrejski imigrant zamordowany w niewyjaśnionych okolicznościach. , in: Wprost, January 14, 2015
  54. ↑ Zagadkowa śmierć Erytrejczyka w mieście antyimigranckich protestów. , in: tvn24, January 14, 2015
  55. ^ 20-year-old Eritrean man found dead in Dresden. (Updated) , in: Malta Today, January 14, 2015
  56. ↑ Open letter from Human Rights Concern Eritrea to Heiko Maas (in English)

Coordinates: 51 ° 0 ′ 46.6 "  N , 13 ° 46 ′ 28.2"  E