NEO-NAZI MOVEMENT:GERMAN AUTHORITIES have warned of a "new form of far-right terrorism" after uncovering an underground cell suspected of killing at least 10 people.
Yesterday, police arrested a 37-year-old man in connection with a probe of the “Nationalist Socialist Underground” – in operation for over a decade but only uncovered last week.
“From the evidence we have so far, it looks like we are experiencing a new form of far-right terrorism,” said federal interior minister Hans-Peter Friedrich. “Now the priority is to find out whether more people are involved, whether there’s a network and discovering its dimensions.”
Chancellor Angela Merkel described as “shocking” and “shameful” the activities of the group suspected of murdering eight Turkish men, one Greek man and a policewoman between September 2000 and April 2007.
The nine men all worked in businesses – from kebab stalls to flower shops – and were killed at their workplace. “It was assumed that it must be about organised crime or possibly racketeering,” said Mr Friedrich. “No link was made between these killings . . . and politically motivated violence.”
The far-right connection emerged last week when two men, aged 34 and 38, killed themselves in the eastern city of Eisenach, reportedly after a botched bank robbery. A third suspect, a 36-year-old woman identified as Beate Z, handed herself into police. She is believed to have set fire to a house used by the group in the eastern city of Zwickau.
A search of the fire-damaged building uncovered guns linked to the 2007 killing of a policewoman and DVDs claiming responsibility for other killings. In one DVD, the two dead men said the group was a “network of comrades adhering to the basic principle of actions, not words”.
German investigators say the underground group is suspected of planning further attacks and may have existed since 1998. The man arrested yesterday in Hanover, identified only as Holger G, is suspected of supplying members of the group with identification papers and mobile homes.
“The investigators didn’t realise what they were dealing with here. Human lives were lost and some deaths could have been prevented,” said Kenan Kolat, head of the Turkish German Association. “ German justice blind when it comes to right-wing violence?”
