Large-scale operation after a deadly attack in Cologne
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Hundreds of police forces are searching refugee shelters in North Rhine-Westphalia
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Police officers stand in front of a refugee accommodation in Cologne on Thursday.
Photo: dpa/Thomas Banneyer
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Cologne At the beginning of March, a man in Cologne was almost beaten to death by around 30 attackers. He later dies in a clinic. Hundreds of emergency services have now searched accommodations in Cologne and Wuppertal to execute 18 arrest warrants. But the accused have apparently disappeared.
It was a veritable excess of violence that a 37-year-old man paid for with his life: A group of around 30 attackers ambushed the man in the Höhenberg district of Cologne on March 10. They hit his Smart, smashed the windows, pulled him out of the car and, according to the Cologne police, inflicted “many punches and kicks” and several stab wounds on him. The crime happened in broad daylight, police officers discovered the seriously injured man in the afternoon and took care of him until an ambulance arrived. In a clinic, doctors tried to save the man’s life in several emergency surgeries, but he died on March 28. The attackers initially fled the scene on foot, then in several cars.
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What helped the investigators of a homicide squad were the recordings of a video camera in the area of the crime scene. They show the full story. The investigators evaluated the recordings “meticulously”, as Cologne’s chief public prosecutor Ulrich Bremer said on Thursday at the request of our editors. “The majority of the suspects and their contributions to the crime were able to be named by the police using the video,” said Bremer. So-called super-recognizers were also involved in identifying those involved in the crime. They are able to memorize and recognize faces extremely well. Super-Recognizer also helped with the analysis of the video material after New Year’s Eve 2015/2016 in Cologne.
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Early on Thursday morning, the investigators from the homicide squad, with the help of several hundred police officers from the riot police, searched six apartments in Cologne as well as the rooms of the suspects in four refugee camps in Cologne and one in Wuppertal. The measures were primarily aimed at 18 men between the ages of 17 and 60, against whom the Cologne District Court had ordered pre-trial detention at the request of the public prosecutor on the strong suspicion of joint manslaughter. The other persons involved in the crime are not yet known to the investigators by name. Shortly after 10 a.m., senior public prosecutor Bremer announced: “So far, none of the 18 suspects wanted with an arrest warrant have been arrested. No suspects were found either at the registered address or at any other address that became known.” However, various search measures are still ongoing. “The suspects are now being put out for arrest across Europe.”
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The background to the crime is said to be family disputes between two large families from the former Yugoslavia. It is not about clans, as Bremer said. The conflict between the families has probably been smoldering for years. “We don’t yet know exactly what triggered the crime.”
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Since Ukrainian war refugees are currently also being accommodated in the accommodation on Boltensternstraße in Cologne-Niehl, Ukrainian-speaking police officers on site provided information about the background to the operation.
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