BFF-50 Warrant leaked on killing that sparked Germany mob attacks

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Warrant leaked on killing that sparked Germany mob attacks

BERLIN, Aug 29, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Police in eastern Germany came under fire
Wednesday after far-right groups posted online the leaked arrest warrant for
a fatal stabbing that has sparked racist mob violence.

“It’s unacceptable that some police officers think they can leak things
like this even though they know they’re committing an offence,” said Saxony
state’s deputy premier Martin Dulig, calling the release a “scandal”.

Saxony in Germany’s ex-communist east has again become a hotspot for
xenophobia after a knife killing early Sunday in the city of Chemnitz led to
protests that degenerated into rightwing extremists hunting down immigrants
in the streets.

Police on Monday arrested a Syrian and an Iraqi man suspected of killing a
35-year-old German man with multiple stabbings in the late-night altercation.

Authorities have not yet identified the victim or suspects in keeping with
the German convention of protecting the identities of people involved in
judicial proceedings.

However, the full arrest warrant of one of the suspects found its way into
the hands of rightwing groups who then posted it online, where it was widely
shared, spelling out the full names of the suspects, victim, eye-witnesses
and the judge.

State premier Michael Kretschmer, who has defended the police force
against charges of being ill-prepared to deal with the far-right rallies,
promised that “we will clarify the matter,” speaking to regional public
broadcaster MDR.

Saxony has been a stronghold of far-right parties and groups that bitterly
oppose Chancellor Angela Merkel for her 2015 decision to keep open German
borders to a mass influx of migrants and refugees.

Police in the state have also come under fire for the alleged sympathies
of some officers with the far-right and the anti-Islam movement PEGIDA.

Saxony police last week apologised for obstructing a TV crew at a
rightwing anti-Merkel rally at the instigation of a nationalist protester who
turned out to be an off-duty police employee.

Dulig said that “it has got to be clear that certain things will no longer
be tolerated in the police force”.

The latest controversy comes as the mood remains highly charged following
what have been labelled as “pogrom-like” scenes in Chemnitz on Sunday in
which extremists chased and beat immigrants from Afghanistan, Syria and
Bulgaria.

On Monday night some 7,000 protesters, most of them football hooligans and
rightwing nationalists, again took to the city’s streets and clashed with
leftist anti-fascist protesters, leaving some 20 people injured.

Police said they were investigating 10 incidents of protesters making the
illegal Hitler salute.

BSS/AFP/RY/1618 hrs