Status: 08/19/2022 03:17 am
According to a newspaper report, the Berlin police are investigating Palestinian President Abbas because of his Holocaust statement in the Federal Chancellery. Accordingly, the police are investigating an initial suspicion of incitement to hatred.
The Holocaust allegation by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas against Israel is now also calling the Berlin police into action. “The preliminary investigation into the initial suspicion of incitement to hatred under Section 130 of the Criminal Code is being processed in a specialist department of the State Criminal Police Office,” a police spokeswoman told the “Bild” newspaper.
Criminal lawyer Udo Vetter told the newspaper: “As a result, an initial suspicion of downplaying the Nazi tyranny cannot be dismissed out of hand.”
Abbas speaks of “multiple Holocaust”
At a joint press conference with Chancellor Olaf Scholz in the Chancellery, Abbas accused Israel of multiple “Holocausts” against the Palestinians, triggering outrage. “Israel has committed 50 massacres in 50 Palestinian locations from 1947 to the present day,” Abbas said, adding, “50 massacres, 50 holocausts.”
When asked by “Bild”, the Federal Foreign Office said that the federal government assumes that Abbas enjoys immunity because he was in the Federal Republic as part of an “official visit”.
Was Abbas “representative of another state”?
The Augsburg criminal law expert Michael Kubiciel told the paper that it was not decisive whether Abbas was in Berlin at the invitation of the Federal Republic. Many people would accept an invitation from government agencies without enjoying immunity.
It is therefore crucial that the person was in Germany “as a representative of another state”. Consequently, the question “whether Palestine is a state or not is of crucial importance,” said Kubiciel. Germany has not recognized Palestine as a state.