He was woken up by a loud knock on his door. After he opened it, he saw the flames, the entire stairwell was burning. He climbed down the iron ladder from the fifth floor. Downstairs, he and the other rescued residents of the asylum seekers’ shelter heard the cries for help from Samuel Kofi Yeboah, who was trapped in his room upstairs: “I’m dying!” As paramedics carried Yeboah into the ambulance, he continued to shout: “I’m dying! I’m dying!” The 27-year-old Ghanaian died from his injuries in hospital.
This all happened on September 19, 1991. The witness who described these impressions wants to remain anonymous. He didn’t even tell his children about what he experienced 32 years ago in the asylum seekers’ accommodation in Saarlouis. He still lives in the city and his children walk to school. He doesn’t want them to be afraid. That they live a nervous life like him, who is frightened when he hears the fire brigade and then immediately calls home to see if everything is okay. For more than 30 years it has not been easy to trust him. For more than 30 years he didn’t have the feeling that his fears were taken seriously. That’s how long it took until there was a court ruling on the question of who was supposed to have started the fire.
The federal prosecutor’s office had demanded nine years and six months
The Koblenz Higher Regional Court sees it as proven that Peter Werner S., now 52, set fire to the accommodation. On Monday it sentenced him to a youth prison of six years and ten months for murder, attempted murder and particularly serious arson; In September 1991, S. was 20 years old and was part of the neo-Nazi scene in Saarlouis at the time. The federal prosecutor’s office had demanded a prison sentence of nine years and six months, “the motive for the crime was xenophobia,” and they could not detect any “real remorse, insight or a change of heart” in S.. The defense had asked for four years and six months. Peter Werner S. was a follower and did not set the fire himself.
The trial began last November, 88 witnesses were heard, the most important witness, Diana K., on two days. She reported Peter Werner S. in the fall of 2019 because he was said to have told her about the arson attack at a barbecue party in the summer of 2007: “It was me and they never caught me.” It was only in 2019 that she found out that Samuel Kofi Yeboah had died in the flames, meaning that the statute of limitations had not yet expired.
However, the process also left questions unanswered. Why was the investigation so sloppy after the arson attack? The members of the neo-Nazi scene were questioned, but not really suspected. One told the court that he had been offered a beer. The investigation into the right-wing scene only lasted eight days, and the investigation was stopped after almost a year. An investigative committee in the Saarland state parliament is now supposed to clarify how the failures at that time could have occurred.
The question of who knew what about the neo-Nazis in Saarlouis could not be clarified in the trial; Most members at the time cited gaps in their memory.
Peter St., then the skinhead leader in Saarlouis, is now also being investigated
The only thing that is certain is that three neo-Nazis were drinking in a tavern and talking about the riots on September 18, 1991 in Hoyerswerda. Peter Werner S., Heiko Sch. and Peter St., the leader of the Saarlouis skinheads. The defendant initially remained silent about that evening before the Koblenz Higher Regional Court for months, then he said: Heiko Sch. I set fire to the accommodation and he was the only one there.
Heiko Sch. Then he denied it and said he went home. He, in turn, said that at some point Peter St. said, “Something like that should burn here too.” And the next day Peter Werner S. grinned, “his behavior came across like: The thing burned down, cool.” Peter St. was the last of the three to appear in court. He maintained his behavior of the past three decades: he remained silent.
After the three’s statements, the federal prosecutor’s office expanded the investigation again. Peter St. has been in custody since the beginning of June and is strongly suspected of being an accessory to murder.