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Germany opens fresh probe against police over neo-Nazi chats

German prosecutors said Wednesday they had opened a probe against 20 police officers, including elite commandos, accused of taking part in far-right online chats and swapping Nazi symbols.

Published: 9 June 2021 13:50 CEST
Germany opens fresh probe against police over neo-Nazi chats
Archive photo of a police officer in Kassel, Hesse. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Swen Pförtner

In the latest political scandal to rock Germany’s security services, the Hesse state crime office and the Frankfurt prosecutor’s office said they had
carried out dawn raids at the homes and workplaces of six of the suspects.

“Seventeen of the accused are believed to have distributed content constituting incitement of racial hatred or images linked to a former National
Socialist organisation,” the authorities said in a statement on the investigation, which was launched in April.

Three officers stand accused of obstruction of justice “because they were participants of the relevant chat groups and as superiors failed to stop or sanction the communication”.

Most of the offending content was exchanged in 2016-17, with the most recent from 2019.

READ ALSO: Hesse police face claims of links with far-right scene

The accused are all male and range in age from 29 to 54. Nineteen are active police officers and one retired. Prosecutors said all had been
temporarily relieved of their duties, with one suspect formally suspended. 

The probe began with allegations against a 38-year-old officer with the SEK special deployment commando in Frankfurt who was accused of sharing illicit content including child pornography.

A search of his mobile phone uncovered some of the racist chats in question.

The case is only the latest example of alleged extremism in the ranks of the German police.

Last September, officers in the most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia swooped on colleagues accused of spreading what prosecutors
called “repulsive” far-right propaganda in online chatrooms.

And in July, prosecutors announced the arrest of a former police officer and his wife suspected of having sent threatening emails to politicians and other public figures across Germany.

READ ALSO: Ex-police officer and wife arrested over far-right letters in Germany

The previous month the defence minister ordered the partial dissolution of the elite KSK commando force over right-wing extremism.

READ ALSO: What is Germany doing to combat the far-right after Hanau attacks?

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POLICE

Denmark convicts man over bomb joke at airport

A Danish court on Thursday gave a two-month suspended prison sentence to a 31-year-old Swede for making a joke about a bomb at Copenhagen's airport this summer.

Published: 5 October 2023 17:11 CEST
Denmark convicts man over bomb joke at airport

In late July, Pontus Wiklund, a handball coach who was accompanying his team to an international competition, said when asked by an airport agent that
a bag of balls he was checking in contained a bomb.

“We think you must have realised that it is more than likely that if you say the word ‘bomb’ in response to what you have in your bag, it will be perceived as a threat,” the judge told Wiklund, according to broadcaster TV2, which was present at the hearing.

The airport terminal was temporarily evacuated, and the coach arrested. He later apologised on his club’s website.

“I completely lost my judgement for a short time and made a joke about something you really shouldn’t joke about, especially in that place,” he said in a statement.

According to the public prosecutor, the fact that Wiklund was joking, as his lawyer noted, did not constitute a mitigating circumstance.

“This is not something we regard with humour in the Danish legal system,” prosecutor Christian Brynning Petersen told the court.

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