Frankfurt/Main (dpa/lhe) – Because they are said to have shared racist and inciting content in an internal chat group, the Frankfurt am Main public prosecutor has filed charges against five police officers from the 1st district in Frankfurt. The partner of an official is also accused, as the authority announced on Monday.
Four men and two women from Ludwigshafen, Frankfurt and Darmstadt aged 31 to 37 are accused. They are accused of using signs of unconstitutional organizations, hate speech, depicting violence, insulting religious or ideological beliefs and property, and distributing pornographic writings. The officials – according to the public prosecutor’s office, four of them last held the rank of police commissioner, one worked as a police commissioner – are currently released from their official duties.
According to the investigation, the suspects were participants in a chat group set up in October 2014, in which primarily right-wing extremist, racist, anti-Semitic and inhuman content in the form of image and video sequences was said to have been shared. In addition, they are said to have been active in other chat groups in different constellations.
According to the public prosecutor’s office, between October 2014 and October 2018, in a total of 102 cases, they posted mostly content depicting Adolf Hitler, swastikas and other National Socialist symbols, as well as trivializing the Holocaust in the various chat groups. Minorities, especially people with disabilities, a migration background and dark skin color as well as homosexuals, Jews and Muslims, were despised and slandered, according to the press release. In addition, the accused are said to have shared pornographic and violent content in the group.
According to the information, the investigations were initiated in August 2018 after the Frankfurt lawyer Seda Basay-Yildiz received an anonymous threatening letter by fax. The letter was signed “NSU 2.0”, an allusion to the right-wing extremist terrorist cell National Socialist Underground (NSU). Subsequent investigations revealed that shortly before the threatening letter was sent to Basay-Yildiz, her residents’ registration data had been queried by a service computer from the 1st district. According to the public prosecutor, one of the accused is a police commissioner who was logged in with her access data at the time of the query.
The death threats against Seda Basay-Yildiz were the first in a series of threatening letters. Among the addressees were also celebrities such as TV presenter Jan Böhmermann. Women who are publicly committed and successful were particularly often affected and exposed to severe insults and threats. In that case, a 54-year-old from Berlin has had to answer to the Frankfurt district court since February. He is accused of, among other things, insult in 67 cases, attempted coercion and threats.
Only a few days ago it became known that the public prosecutor’s office in Darmstadt was investigating six officers of a commissariat at the police headquarters in southern Hesse for insult and bodily harm. A chat group is also said to have played a role. Chat groups by police officers had already made headlines in Hesse in the past. Several cases had become known in which right-wing extremist, racist and sexist content had been exchanged.
© dpa-infocom, dpa:220411-99-879455/3
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