Comment: The investigation into the Hanau attack does not go far enough

The Hanau investigative committee of the Hesse state parliament should also clarify whether authorities made mistakes before and after the attack. But crucial questions remained unanswered.

Some in the Hanau investigative committee put a lot of effort into it, for example the first committee chairman from the SPD. Nevertheless, in the end one has to say: the enlightenment did not go far enough. An example: the emergency exit at the Tatort Arena Bar in Hanau-Kesselstadt. In the Arena bar, the racist murderer shot two young men, Said Nesar Hashemi and Hamza Kurtović. During the crime, all bar patrons fled to the back of the bar and not to the emergency exit.

It is now clear why. The emergency exit was usually locked, and this was also the case on the night of the crime. This was confirmed by bar patrons who tried to go outside through the door early in the evening, police officers who examined the crime scene, and this is suggested by video recordings from the bar. The investigative committee has carried out important educational work here.

Further serious allegations against the police

But that’s not enough, because there are serious suspicions. Not only against the bar operator, who apparently locked the door, but also against the Hanau police. Relatives of the victims say police ordered the bar owner to lock the door. The reason: During the numerous raids on the bar, guests used to escape through the emergency exit. The police wanted to prevent that. Particularly explosive: A witness confirmed in writing that he himself witnessed a police officer instructing the bar operator to always keep the emergency exit door locked.

The police order an emergency exit to be locked, so people cannot escape a right-wing murderer – there is some evidence to suggest that this was the case. But this possible scandal only appears in passing in the committee report. And the Hessian judiciary also sits on its hands. The investigations into the emergency exit have all been discontinued.

The public prosecutor says: It doesn’t matter what the police ordered about the emergency exit. Because it is not at all certain whether the bar patrons would have fled from the perpetrator to the emergency exit if it had been open. Perhaps they would have feared the risk of escaping. Maybe the locked emergency exit wasn’t the deciding factor.

An expert on the investigative committee had said clearly: If people know that an emergency exit is closed, then they won’t run there. The locked emergency exit was a major reason why bar patrons were trapped.

Attorney General needs more skills

Serious police failure, possibly negligent homicide, is in question and no Hessian court has clarified these allegations. And in the committee report, only the left’s dissenting vote emphasizes the allegations against the police. The victims of right-wing terror were repeatedly promised that the authorities would investigate failures. However, as Hanau shows, this still happens too rarely. Also because there is often a lack of distance when one state authority is supposed to clarify the failure of another.

What should I do? If the state is investigating itself, new investigative options must urgently be created. In other countries there are independent special investigators for such cases.

Even better: Politics gives the Federal Prosecutor General this task. He would not be entangled in the judicial system of a federal state and could investigate completely independently. Politicians must at least draw this conclusion. Although the attack in Hanau was the act of a right-wing murderer, state failure very likely made the crime easier for him.