Germany’s law enforcement agencies, still reeling from their botched handling of a neo-Nazi killing spree, need to work much more effectively together to tackle the security threats facing the country, the interior minister said yesterday.
Unveiling his ministry’s annual report into security risks, Hans-Peter Friedrich and the outgoing head of the domestic intelligence service said radical Islamists and neo-Nazis posed the biggest threats to German democracy and rule of law.
Mr Friedrich also acknowledged that poor co-ordination between federal and regional bodies had contributed to their failure to identify and stop a neo-Nazi cell that killed 10 people between 2000 and 2007.
The murders of nine, mostly ethnic Turkish, immigrants and a police officer horrified Germans and badly dented the reputation of the national intelligence service, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
“We must now implement reforms and restore trust in the domestic intelligence service,” Mr Friedrich said. – (Reuters)
