||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||| ||| ||| A N T I F A ||| ||| ||| ||| I N F O - B U L L E T I N ||| ||| _____ ||| ||| ||| ||| * News * Analysis * Research * Action * ||| ||| ||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ***** ||/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\||/\|| || * -- UPDATE --- * -- July 16, 1996 -- * -- UPDATE --- * || ||\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/||\/|| U P D A T E _____ L U E B E C K : ANATOMY OF A COVER-UP ***** EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION On the night of January 18, 1996, arsonists attacked an apartment building filled with refugees in the city of Luebeck, Germany. 10 people, including 4 children, were murdered and some 55 other victims were severely injured in the blaze. Shortly after the conflagration was set, police stopped three suspects; all had connections to Luebeck's neo-Nazi scene. According to preliminary reports, the boneheads had repeatedly threatened residents of the building on Neue Hafenstrasse 52. Yet, the police and the State Prosecutor's office released the Nazis because they "had an alibi." One of the boneheads is now accused of having desecrated a Jewish cemetery! More concerned with their "international image" than in tracking down and prosecuting the racist murderers, State authorities arrested Safwan Eid, a 20-year-old Lebanese refugee. Eid and his family were victims of the pogrom, yet he and other victims have been treated as if they were the criminals responsible for this atrocity! Eid remains imprisoned and has been formally charged with 10 counts murder. The report below, by the International Independent Commission, constituted to investigate the xenophobic nature of the State's case against Safwan Eid, details the shoddy work by the cops and the blatant, political nature of what promise to be a latter-day show trial in the Germany of "actually existing capitalism." Forensic evidence, including the singed hair and eyebrows of the fascists, their contradictory "alibis" coupled with a prior history of racist and anti-Semitic violence in the city, which includes repeated assaults on refugees and the 1994 firebombing of a synagogue during the Passover holiday, points to a cover-up by the State Prosecutor's Office -- for the Nazi killers. DEMAND FREEDOM FOR SAFWAN EID! ***** From: DEBRA@OLN.comlink.apc.org (Debra Guzman) Organization: HURINet/Human Rights Info Network Subject: DEU: germany update may/june 96 Date: Wed, 03 Jul 1996 13:44:00 +0100 ----- ## author: MISCHA@VLBERLIN.comlink.de ## date : 02.07.96 BERLIN ANTIRACIST INFORMATION NETWORK Germany Update May/June 96 ----- SAFWAN EID STILL IN JAIL. INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION STARTS WORK IN LUEBECK. STATE PROSECUTOR REFUSES TO COOPERATE. The "International Independant Commission" investigating the case of Safwan Eid, the Lebanese man accused of starting a fire in which 10 people were killed, started work in Luebeck at the end of April. The Commission is made up of 9 members - lawyers and authors from France, Great Britain, Italy, Israel and the Netherlands. The Commission has however met with a wall of non- cooperation on the part of the Luebeck State Prosecutor and the investigating authorities, which has meant that the Commission members have been refused access to the burnt-out ruin of the scene of the fire and have also been denied permission to visit Safwan Eid in jail. The commissioners were however able to study the documents made available to Safwan's lawyer. Christian Bruschi, a French lawyer and Commission member commented after looking at the documents that they indicated that Safwan Eid's guilt "was in no way obvious". The nine Commission members all have experience with human rights groups fighting racism and antisemitism. Geoffrey Bindman, a lawyer from Britain, commented that "we want to make use of our experience in cases of racist attacks" and went on to criticize the hesitancy of the German authorities in identifying racially motivated violence. The Commission also has three Italian members - Mario Angelelli, Angiolo Gracci and Arturo Salerni. In an interview they are quoted as saying that Italian newspaper commentators following the case were "very astonished" at the course of investigations. "It is very strange in a case of such importance to decide that the person who is supposed to have committed the crime is himself among the victims. Especially when the State Prosecutor already expressed this opinion a few days after the fire, before the investigations were completed". Meanwhile Safwan Eid's lawyer, Gabriele Heinecke, has submitted an appeal against her client's imprisonment. According to the text of her appeal, "the claim made by the State Prosecutor, alleging that Safwan Eid desribed the exact place in which the fire started to an ambulance medic during the night of the fire, and hence demonstrated knowledge available only to the perpetrator, is false". In addition Safwan Eid is 20, not 21 years of age, which means that under German law a juvenile court judge must decide on the terms of his detention. According to Ms Heinecke, who formulated her appeal after the case documentation had been made available to her, none of the witnesses in the case confirm that Safwan Eid talked of the fire starting on the first floor, as has so far been claimed by the State Prosecutor. An independant fire expert - a Mr Ernst Achilles - had also disproved the State Prosecutor's assumption that the fire could not have been started by people entering from outside. Ms Heinecke went on to state that the fire could have been started in as many as three different places. Investigations have also so far failed to deal with the question of the body of one of the victims, named as Sylvio A., found tied up with wire. An autopsy concluded that the cause of death was not smoke poisoning. Gabriele Heinecke once again called for the State Prosecutor to revise the official version of the course of events during the fire, taking the evidence unearthed by Mr Achilles into account. Both the State Prosecutor and the State and Federal Bureaus of Investigation (Staatskriminalamt and Bundeskriminalamt) have so far refused to reexamine the scene of the fire together with Mr Achilles. According to one spokesperson: "There wouldn't have been any new results" (jw 23.4.96). Safwan Eid is still in jail, still awaiting trial, at the time of writing. ["Germany Update" would appreciate any reports of how this case has been handled in the media in other countries, or of any actions taken by antiracist groups etc.] *FREE SAFWAN EID*FREE SAFWAN EID*FREE SAFWAN EID*FREE SAFWAN EID*FREE SAFWAN EID* ----- Below we document a translation of a statement made by the Independant International Commission on 23.06.96.: ----- INDEPENDENT INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION Mario Angelelli - Geoffrey Bindman - Christian Bruschi - Angiolo Gracci - Beate Klarsfeld - Hans Langenberg - Felicia Langer - Gaetano Pecorella - Arturo Salerni Address: Schoolplein POSTAL ADDRESS Advokatenkollektief IN GERMANY: Schoolplein 5A Anwaltsbuero Heinecke pp 3581 PX Utrecht Budapester Str. 49 20359 Hamburg Telefon: +49 (0)40/439 60 02 Telefax: +49 (0)40/439 31 83 Bank account no.: 498 463-203; Postbank Hamburg BLZ 200 100 20 Account in the name of: A.Wulf/ Pax Christi; Heading:IUK Luebeck ----- The Independant International Commission (IIC) investigating the fire on 18th January 1996 in Luebeck in the Neue Hafenstrasse 52 met for its second plenary meeting on June 22nd and 23rd. The IIC has resolved to publish an interim report, as well as prior to publication to give expression to its justified fears about the nature and results of the investigations by the state prosecutor. STATEMENT INDEPENDENT INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION Luebeck, 23rd June 1996 ----- I. THE RESIDENTS OF THE BUILDING NEUE HAFENSTRASSE 52 The IIC has noted that the surviving former residents of the house in which the fire took place - many of whom were severely injured by the fire - are subjected as foreigners to restrictions regarding their residency status. All these people were without exception witnesses to the tragic events. In order to really get to the bottom of this tragedy and to arrest those responsible, all witnesses must be present and able to make their testimony. It is for this reason that the IIC notes with concern that some of the former residents are still threatened by deportation, and this in spite of the fact that the state prosecutors' preliminary proceedings against Safwan Eid have not even been completed yet. The Commission is even aware of one case in which a former resident, Victor Atoe, was already deported to Nigeria in May 1996. The deportation of potential witnesses, or even allowing potential witnesses to be threatened by deportation before a case has been completed in which their statements could be of significance undermines the process of establishing justice. It is not possible to reach a just verdict under such circumstances. We recommend that all those affected are given binding guarantees that their residency in the Federal Republic of Germany is assured at least until all conceivable investigations arising in connection with the fire in the Neue Hafenstrasse have been completed. Victor Atoe should immediately be granted permission to return if he so wishes. It should be made public that Emannuel Uwaila will not be deported or punished so that he is then hopefully in a position to make his whereabouts known. II. SUSPECTS The IIC is of course not in a position to establish the identity of the person or persons responsible for the fire. It would neither be meaningful nor appropriate for the IIC to take on this task, which is properly the task of the criminal prosecution authorities, acting according to the law of the Federal Republic of Germany. The IIC considers it however to be its duty to express its concern regarding certain aspects of the investigational proceedings and method, which in the opinion of the IIC lack balance and objectivity. It is clearly a completely illogical act for someone to set fire to the house in which he lives and then to stay there with his entire family, if he does not happen to have suicidal and homicidal tendencies. The state prosecutor admits that whatever Safwan Eid may have done, he did not intend to murder anybody. The state prosecutor, who has managed to keep the accused in jail since the fire, is pressing a case against a 20-year old adolescent who only attended school in Germany for 6 months and who hence speaks German only poorly. The state prosecutor's office has based its actions on the grounds of a single statement which is talked up into a confession and which was allegedly made to a single witness. It acts in this way although the fire could well have caused the accused to be under shock, according to the statement of the selfsame witness. The state prosecutor's case is based on this supposed confession although four people can testify that the accused stated directly after the fire that there had been an attack from outside. In addition the state prosecutor also ignores a series of contradictions in the depiction of Safwan Eid's supposed confession to other people by the paramedical worker before the latter was interviewed by the police. By contrast the initially suspected youths who have neo-nazi connections or sympathies were immediately released following the arrest of Safwan Eid, in spite of the following facts: 1. A forensic examination following their arrest showed that the youths had freshly singed hair, eyebrows and eyelashes. 2. They were seen on the night of the crime in the direct vicinity of the scene of the fire. 3. The majority of them already had a long list of previous convictions for violent behaviour and theft. One of them is currently accused of desecrating a Jewish graveyard. 4. The exact time of the outbreak of the fire and hence their alibi are uncertain. The IIC is in possession of a statement from the state prosecutor's office in which the reasons for the cessation of investigations regarding these three suspects are given. All the reasons given by the state prosecutor's office only give rise to further questions: 1. The state prosecutor says that the suspects were to be found at a Shell filling station and at the railway station when the fire broke out, and not in the vicinity of the scene of the crime. Given that the exact time of the outbreak of the fire is unknown and that the railway station is only a few minutes' drive away from the scene of the crime, this statement seems inconclusive and in need of further elucidation. 2. The suspects' explanations for their singed hair, which of course leads to the conclusion that they had shortly before been near a fire, are confused, contradictory or lacking in credibility. However, further investigations into the truth of these statements were never undertaken. One of the suspects for example claims to have singed his eyebrows and hair whilst attempting to set light to a dog (an "explanation" denied by one of the other suspects). There are no indications that any attempts were made to find this dog. In fact the state prosecutor's office seems itself not to believe the suspect's explanation, as it claims that: "the singed hair of the suspect possibly stems from them having set light to stolen vehicles which they had previously ransacked". Not one of the suspects has ever made such a claim. They merely admitted that they often steal cars. There seems to be no evidence to support the theory of the state prosecutor. The IIC is seriously concerned that the state prosecutor apparently seems neither willing nor able to pursue further these and other leads regarding the suspects from the nearby town of Grevesmuehlen. It is painfully obvious and is the cause of grave concern to us, that the state prosecutor on the one hand does not pursue tangible leads against these persons yet on the other hand is prosecuting Safwan Eid on the basis of an alleged confession. The IIC recommends that investigations against the suspects from Grevesmuehlen are reopened. III. THE STATE PROSECUTOR'S MAIN WITNESS We have already stated above that the state prosecutor's case is based on the statement of a volunteer paramedical worker who was at the scene of the fire. The IIC has no intention to cast doubt on the credibility of this witness, who clearly provided valuable and brave assistance to the victims of the fire. The IIC notes however with concern that his reports of what Safwan Eid is supposed to have said to him are self-contradictory and that there is no independant confirmation for the reports made by this witness. IV. THE OUTBREAK OF THE FIRE The IIC is concerned that uncertainties and contradictions regarding the cause and point of origin of the fire have not been investigated further. It looks as if the state prosecutor's office reached its conclusion that the fire started on the first floor at a very early stage of the investigations. It also claims that this version is confirmed by Safwan Eid's alleged confession. This is not the case. In contradiction to the expert's report on which the state prosecutor's case is based, the statements of Professor Achilles make it appear at least equally plausible that the fire started on the ground floor of the building. Not only that, but it appears eminently possible that the fire was started by persons who had intruded into the house or by a person or several persons who threw an incendiary compound through a window. The IIC acknowledges that Professor Achilles has been called on by the court to act as an expert witness. The IIC assumes that he will produce an additional report which the IIC hopes will contribute to the clarification of the current contradictions in the evidence regarding the outbreak of the fire. The IIC has received the disquieting information that the house in which the fire took place has not been reliably sealed off by the police and that unauthorized persons have access to the house. It is possible that important evidence has thus been destroyed. Of even greater concern is information to the effect that there are plans to tear down the house completely. We urgently recommend that everything be done to ensure that the house is preserved until all investigations relating to the fire have been completed. We also recommend that Professor Achilles or, if it is in the interest of the case, another international expert be asked to work out guidelines for investigations when there is a suspicion of arson in order to ensure that the facts of future incidents can be established fully and unambiguously. V. BUGGING - THE USE OF ELECTRONIC LISTENING DEVICES The state prosecutor's office has taped the conversations between Safwan Eid and his relatives in jail. Extracts from these taped conversations are quoted in the indictment. It is claimed that they contain a confession by Safwan Eid. This recourse to bugging procedures is surprising. Does this not contradict the right to private and family life which is accorded to all persons, even those accused of crimes? Article 8 of the European Human Rights Convention formulates this right with a number of restrictions. According to the opinion of the Commission these restrictions do not apply in this case. The method chosen by the state prosecutor's office for the analysis of these excerpts is also surprising. It is a one-sided analysis in order to interpret the excerpts to the disadvantage of the accused. Yet not even the interpreters are agreed on the contents of the excerpts. The results of this bugging, which is largely in contravention of basic rights, contain nothing which proves Safwan's guilt. They merely give rise to speculation, which the state prosecutor presents as a confession. ANNEX Our observations and comments are based on statements by both the state prosecutor and the defence. The IIC has received support from the accused's legal advisor. The IIC has offered to meet with the state prosecutor. The state prosecutor's office has refused. The IIC is however still willing to meet with the state prosecutor's office and to look into any comments or suggestions which the latter would like to make. * * * * * Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights (BACORR) 750 La Playa # 730 San Francisco, California 94121 Voice: (415) 437-4032 E-Mail: On PeaceNet visit BACORR's conference. 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