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🇩🇪 Germany /Crime & Justice

25 years later, report strengthens Left’s call for NSU inquiry committee

From Die Zeit · () German

Translated from German and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

Newswire Named sources Context piece
  • Hamburg’s Left party says a legal assessment supports its call for a parliamentary inquiry into the far-right NSU’s murder of Süleyman Taşköprü 25 years ago.
  • The Bundestag’s research service reportedly found that an inquiry committee has broader rights to access files than a research project.
  • Researchers have faced resistance from the federal prosecutor’s office, while a court application over access to files is pending.

Twenty-five years after NSU terrorists shot Hamburg greengrocer Süleyman Taşköprü, the Left in Hamburg’s state parliament says a new assessment strengthens its demand for a parliamentary inquiry committee.

Hamburg is the only German state where the far-right National Socialist Underground, or NSU, carried out a murder without the state parliament later investigating the crime through a parliamentary committee. Instead, Hamburg plans to address the case through a research project.

The Left said the Scientific Research Service of the German Bundestag had established that an inquiry committee would have broader rights to inspect files than a research project. “A research project is not a substitute for an inquiry committee,” said Deniz Celik, the party’s domestic policy spokesperson. He said researchers depend on discretionary decisions, while a committee has a constitutionally protected right to receive files.

A research project is not a substitute for an inquiry committee.

· Deniz CelikThe Hamburg Left politician argued that a research project cannot provide the same investigative powers as a parliamentary committee.

The dispute has become concrete. Researchers recently encountered resistance in seeking access to records, and a spokesperson confirmed at the end of June that the federal prosecutor had rejected a request. The Hamburg parliament and the research group then applied to the Higher Regional Court in Karlsruhe for a judicial decision.

Taşköprü, 31, was shot on June 27, 2001, in the fruit and vegetable shop he ran with his father in Hamburg-Bahrenfeld. He left a wife and young daughter. The NSU murdered nine men of Turkish and Greek origin and a police officer between 2000 and 2007. Security authorities failed for years to identify the connection and initially investigated the victims’ surroundings. The link emerged only after the NSU publicly revealed itself. Hamburg’s research project is intended to examine official failures, as inquiry committees in other German states have done.

Researchers depend on a discretionary decision, while an inquiry committee has a constitutionally protected right to have files submitted.

· Deniz CelikCelik contrasted researchers’ limited access to records with the legal powers of an inquiry committee.
About this summary

Originally published by Die Zeit in German. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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