It was an assassination attempt that caused horror far beyond Saarland. On September 19, 1991, Ghanaian Samuel Kofi Yeboah died in a fire in a hostel for asylum seekers in Saarlouis. Two people were injured in the fire, 18 other residents of the accommodation were able to get to safety from the flames.
The suspicion quickly arose that it was an arson attack motivated by right-wing extremists. However, no suspect could be identified.
Only in April, almost 31 years after the crime, was a man arrested. Against Peter S., who has been in custody since his arrest, there was “urgent suspicion,” it said at the time. The Karlsruhe authorities have now filed charges in the case. The State Security Senate of the Koblenz Higher Regional Court must now decide whether to start a process. Peter S. is accused of murder, attempted murder in 20 cases, arson resulting in death and attempted death.
According to the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office, the defendant spoke with right-wing extremist like-minded people late in the evening of September 18, 1991 in a restaurant in Saarlouis about racially motivated attacks on accommodation for foreigners in Hoyerswerda, Saxony. “The participants in the discussion made it clear that they would also approve of such attacks being carried out in Saarlouis,” the authority said in a statement.
During the night, Peter S. finally went to a hostel for asylum seekers in Saarlouis “to set a fire there out of his right-wing extremist and racist sentiment,” according to the prosecution. In the stairwell he had distributed petrol and set it on fire. The fire spread quickly. In the attic, 27-year-old Samuel Yeboah suffered severe burns and smoke inhalation. He died in a hospital the same day.
Saarlouis, where there was a very active neo-Nazi scene in the 1990s, was in the eyes of the media and the population in those years on a par with Hoyerswerda in Saxony, Mölln in Schleswig-Holstein and Solingen in North Rhine-Westphalia; Places where people who sought protection in Germany were also killed by right-wing extremists.
According to a report by mirrors Peter S. was a leading figure in the right-wing extremist scene in Saarlouis at the time. He is said to have acted as a marshal at demonstrations by neo-Nazis and was involved in a neo-Nazi attack on a student in Saarbrücken in 1992.
After the crime, there was repeated harsh criticism of the work of the police, especially from anti-racist initiatives. Every year on the anniversary of the Ghaner’s death, the alliance “Aktion 3. Welt Saar” reminded of his fate and lamented the years of speechlessness of the city administration in the case. There was also disagreement about an appropriate commemoration for Yeboah. It was not until 2021, 30 years after the crime, that the city arranged for a commemorative plaque to be put up at the crime scene, which is in a district of the city of 35,000. However, the city rejected further demands for a visible commemoration in the city center, for the commemoration to be coordinated with the cities of Mölln and Solingen, and for a street to be named after the murder victim.
The investigations were stopped after a short time in 1991. Two years ago, new findings led to the reopening of the proceedings. In the meantime, the police have admitted mistakes, the Saarland police chief Norbert Rupp apologized for the omissions in April when the arrest was made. An internal working group has been investigating the case since August 2020 and found deficits in the organizational structure and the “collection, evaluation and dissemination of information”.