HSV: No end to the Jatta case – is that still justified? | NDR.de – Sport

by Matthias Heidrich and Elisabeth Hyra

Meanwhile, the investigations around the HSV professional are a political issue. The members of the left-wing parliamentary group of the Hamburg parliament, Deniz Celik and Cansu Özdemir, made a “small question” to the Hamburg Senate in the Jatta case. You question the proportionality of the procedure. “We find that the public prosecutor’s office is overzealous and disproportionate,” Celik told NDR. He believes that Jatta is measured by two standards.

Mainly due to the movement report recently commissioned by the Hamburg public prosecutor – already the second report in the Jatta case. The Institute for Biological Anthropology at the University of Freiburg is to compare current Jatta videos with recordings by Daffeh from 2012. “As a rule, such reports are used for the most serious crimes. We think that is totally exaggerated,” said Celik.

Public prosecutor refers to the “principle of legality”

In the response of the Senate, which leaves more questions unanswered than answered, reference is made to the “principle of legality”, which the Hamburg public prosecutor also refers to when asked by the NDR. Accordingly, she was “obliged to conduct these investigations”. In addition, anthropological comparative reports are also used as evidence in other investigative proceedings, “although not so often”. According to the “principle of legality”, public prosecutors must investigate all crimes with the evidence available.

So far no clear evidence

The previous investigations by various authorities, including the Hamburg public prosecutor’s office, have not produced any clear evidence that Bakery Jatta gave false information about his identity and age when he came to Germany as a Gambian refugee in 2015. There is evidence to suggest that Jatta could be Daffeh and justify an initial suspicion. The professional footballer denies the allegations.

The Hamburg public prosecutor’s office does not want to discontinue the proceedings, which Jatta’s lawyer Thomas Bliwier had already requested at the end of last year. He did not get an answer to his letter: “That is bad style, but also common.”

According to Bliwier, a reference to the second report in the Jatta case, also commissioned by the public prosecutor at the end of 2020, would have been imperative. “I found out about the contract from the newspaper. It is a serious breach of procedural guarantees.”

Campaign of the “Bild” newspaper?

Jatta’s lawyer found out about it from “Bild”. The publishing house Springer, which set the ball rolling in the Jatta case in the form of a “Sport Bild” report at the beginning of August 2019, is always well informed about the measures taken by the authorities and regularly fires speculation about Jatta with headlines. When the 22-year-old’s apartment was searched last summer, “Bild” was even there live. Reliable evidence was not brought to light.

“Never found anything convincing”

“It’s almost like a campaign,” said NDR reporter Peter Hornung in the NDR Sportlcub. “Apparently there is a whole publishing house that wants this research victory, so to speak.” Investigative journalist Hornung also researched the Jatta case with his colleagues. “We have always found evidence, but never found anything convincing that this could actually be true.”

District office Hamburg-Mitte closed the investigation

The Hamburg-Mitte district office, which had also investigated the matter, stopped its investigations at the beginning of September 2019 after Jatta had proven his identity with a certified copy from the Gambia’s birth register. That doesn’t seem to play a role for the Hamburg public prosecutor’s office. “In principle, criminal investigations are not dependent on the results of investigations by other authorities, but must be conducted independently in accordance with the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code,” the public prosecutor informed the NDR.

Jatta attorney criticizes new expert opinion

Instead, the movement report, with which Prof. Dr. Ursula Wittwer-Ofen is concerned. “I dare to doubt that this can be done seriously. I do not believe that the commissioned expert will be able to rely on any conclusions,” said Jatta lawyer Bliwier.

The Hamburg public prosecutor stated that “the expert opinion can confirm or dispel the initial suspicion” and added the remarkable sentence in the answer to the NDR: “100 percent security is not decisive in this respect.” Rather, it is a matter of clarifying “whether there is sufficient suspicion against the accused”. From a criminal law perspective, sufficient suspicion is a prerequisite for an indictment or a penalty order. If this is not the case, the proceedings should actually be discontinued.