Munich (dpa / lby) – The former Bavarian Minister of the Interior and Prime Minister Günther Beckstein (CSU) must also testify in the new NSU investigative committee of the state parliament. But that won’t be until next year, said committee head Toni Schuberl (Greens) after a corresponding decision in the state parliament on Thursday.
In addition, the investigative committee is demanding clarification from the Ministry of Justice about the deletion of several files that should possibly not have been deleted because there is a moratorium on the deletion of files related to the NSU complex. Among them were files that concerned prominent people in the right-wing scene, such as a Blood and Honor official, said Schuberl. Another violation of the deletion moratorium is suspected. The committee therefore decided to seek further information. “We’re digging deeper here to find out how this could have happened.”
Schuberl explained that despite the moratorium on deletion, files on criminal proceedings against leading activists from the right-wing extremist scene had been deleted at various public prosecutor’s offices throughout Bavaria. He complained that the destruction of important files and documents relating to potential supporters of the NSU terrorist trio significantly impeded the work of the committee of inquiry.
One of the aims of the second NSU investigative committee is to clarify possible connections between the “National Socialist underground” and the Bavarian neo-Nazi scene. The neo-Nazi terror cell – Beate Zschäpe, Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt – had been murdering through Germany for years. Their victims were nine traders of Turkish and Greek origin and a German policewoman. Mundlos and Böhnhardt also carried out two bomb attacks, injuring dozens. The two killed each other in 2011 to avoid their impending arrest – only then was the NSU exposed. Zschäpe, the only survivor of the trio, was sentenced to life imprisonment in July 2018 after more than five years of trial.
The State Criminal Police Office had already had to admit in the investigative committee that a technical glitch had led to the accidental deletion of data, also in connection with the NSU. The problem was quickly recognized, however, and it was assumed that the data could be completely restored, it was said at the time.