More than 30 years after a deadly fire, the authorities are investigating again – because of a racially motivated attack. But despite numerous clues, there is little hope that those responsible will be found.
Despite many new clues after a deadly arson attack in the Allgäu more than 30 years ago, there is still no promising lead to the perpetrator or perpetrators. “Five investigation tracks are currently being processed,” said a spokesman for the Munich public prosecutor’s office. “But there isn’t a really hot lead.” The authority assumes that the police will complete their investigations in the case “by the summer break”.
A five-year-old died in the fire in Kempten on the night of November 17, 1990, and at least five people were seriously injured. The investigators are now assuming a racially motivated assassination attempt because the building was only inhabited by Turkish nationals at the time of the crime. After the fire, arson was quickly identified as the cause, but investigators initially suspected a dispute among Turks as the cause. Later, a newspaper received a letter of confession marked “Anti-Kanaken-Front-Kempten”.
After press inquiries about a possible right-wing extremist background, the general public prosecutor’s office in Munich, as the central office for combating extremism and terrorism, resumed investigations into the murder case at the end of 2020. A special commission was formed at the criminal police in Neu-Ulm. Recently, the investigators had also relied on the ZDF program “Aktenzeichen XY…unsolved” when looking for those responsible. According to the public prosecutor’s office in Munich, almost 30 tips were received by the investigators after the television report in January. This resulted in nine new tracks that the police had followed – but so far without a decisive breakthrough, said a spokesman for the authority. With regard to the remaining clues, further investigations are currently being carried out in various federal states. So the process could take some time.