Exclusive
Status: 11/17/2021 5:27 p.m.
The BKA has developed a system to help police officers identify particularly dangerous right-wing extremists at an early stage. A similar instrument has been used by Islamists for years.
By Florian Flade, WDR
“I carry it in front of me like a mantra,” said Thomas Haldenwang, President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), at the public hearing of the Parliamentary Control Committee in the Bundestag at the end of October. “The greatest threat to security and democracy in Germany continues to come from right-wing extremism.”
Germany’s highest-ranking constitutional protector referred to the numbers: 33,300 people would be assigned to the right-wing extremist scene. Of these, 13,300, i.e. around a third, are violence-oriented. The tendency, including right-wing crimes, is still increasing.
Prioritization urgently required
In view of these numbers, the security authorities have to prioritize – for example when monitoring right-wing extremists who are considered to be particularly dangerous. 75 people are currently nationwide as right-wing extremists “threats”, who are trusted to attack at any time. Of these, 34 extremists are currently in custody. Another 182 right-wing extremists are classified as “relevant people”, for example as important actors in the scene or supporters of suspected terrorists.
But how do you determine whether a person is a possible future terrorist? In order to identify potential attackers at an early stage, the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) has developed a new risk analysis assessment tool and is now testing it. It is called “rule-based analysis of potentially destructive perpetrators to assess the acute risk – right”, or abbreviated: RADAR right. This tool is intended to help police officers better assess the risk posed by a known right-wing extremist. Nationwide, a standardized procedure for the analysis of right-wing extremist threats is to be implemented for the state security departments of the police.
System against Islamists already in use
Such an instrument already exists for the area of Islamist terrorism: It was introduced in the summer of 2017 after the attack by Anis Amri on Berlin’s Breitscheidplatz.
After the murder of the Kassel District President Walter Lübcke and the attack on the Halle synagogue in 2019, the Federal Ministry of the Interior presented a catalog of measures to make the fight against right-wing extremism more effective. It also announced the development of the RADAR right system.
At the beginning of 2020, the BKA finally started to develop the new tool for right-wing extremism. For this purpose, an evaluation of the literature was first carried out and expert knowledge was used, the BKA informs on request. There is also an “associated partnership” with the Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia State Criminal Police Office and the Austrian Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counter Terrorism Austria (BVT). The Criminological Central Office (KrimZ), based in Wiesbaden, provided scientific support for the development; the legal assessment is carried out by the Saxony-Anhalt Police University of Applied Sciences.
Categorization according to different characteristics
The core of the RADAR system is a risk assessment sheet, which is intended to provide information on whether the state security officers of the police are dealing with a particularly dangerous right-wing extremist. Different areas are queried, for example whether the person is already aware of criminal offenses, whether the person has undergone training in firearms or even has access to weapons. Also, whether the person mainly moves in the scene or also has social contacts outside of the right-wing extremist milieu. It is also of interest whether there is any knowledge about mental illnesses.
The answers to these questions represent risk-increasing or risk-reducing characteristics. Using an allocation model, the person is then assigned to a two-stage scale: moderate or high risk. Such an analysis can then be used as a basis for processing certain right-wing extremists with priority – for example to monitor them or to seek them out in a targeted manner and to carry out so-called “threats”.
The test phase is already running
Studies to test the new instrument have recently started and should be completed by the end of the year. According to the BKA spokesman, training courses for police officers in the federal states on RADAR law could probably begin from April 2022. The tool can then be used.
RADAR-rechts does not, however, serve to track down potentially dangerous right-wing extremists, but only allows a more precise, in-depth analysis of people who are already known. A spokesman for the BKA also emphasizes: “A holistic risk analysis tailored to the individual as well as action and intervention planning cannot replace ‘RADAR-rechts’.”
The Joint Extremism and Terrorism Defense Center (GETZ) in Cologne already has a working group made up of police and constitutional protection authorities, which is supposed to analyze individuals from the right-wing extremist spectrum in more detail and coordinate measures such as monitoring the person.