Threat from NSU 2.0: Police waived warning

The Berlin police say it loud rbb failed to warn Kocak, a member of the Left Party in Berlin. She had information about a racist threat and a possible threat.

On March 21, 2019, an anonymous sender who identified himself as NSU 2.0 sent an email. Addressee: the State Criminal Police Office of the Berlin police. The subject line mentions a letter of confession. The content of the letter is rbb24 research and the “Berliner Morgenpost”.

The abbreviation “NSU” alludes to the right-wing extremist terrorist group “National Socialist Underground”, whose members murdered at least ten people between 2000 and 2007. NSU member Beate Zschäpe was sentenced to life imprisonment in July 2018.

NSU 2.0 defames left-wing MPs as “pest of the people”

From August 2018, right-wing extremists sent more than 140 death threats to politicians, media and cultural workers across Germany under the sender “NSU 2.0”. The threatening letters made headlines.

In the threatening email of March 21, 2019 to the Berlin LKA, the sender claimed that he was responsible for an arson attack on the car of Berlin left-wing politician Ferat Kocak on February 1, 2018. The “NSU 2.0” takes over “explicitly the responsibility”. Kocak was also defamed in the e-mail with the Nazi term “Volksschädling”. The sender also gave Kocak’s family’s home address in Berlin at the time.

The police refrained from warning Kocak of a possible danger. Kocak was not notified of the March 21, 2019 email. The police also did not inform him by means of the so-called “talking about people in danger” that is planned in such cases. The Berlin investigators had known for a long time that Kocak had been threatened by right-wing extremists. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution knew from wiretapped telephone calls that well-known neo-Nazis had repeatedly spied on the politician because of his activities against right-wing extremism. The Berlin LKA also had corresponding findings.

No warning despite police findings

On February 1, 2018, it became apparent how necessary a so-called “address for those at risk” would have been: Kocak’s small car burned out completely. The attack was allegedly carried out by the two right-wing extremists who had spied on him a few weeks earlier under the eyes of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Even before the attack, officials refrained from warning Kocak.

The Berlin police themselves described this as the “wrong decision” in a report on investigative errors in the Neukölln attack series. When the LKA received the threatening email from “NSU 2.0” with the home address of Kocak’s family in March 2019, the officials should have been sensitized. Why did the authorities refrain from warning Kocak now?

On request from rbb 24 research and “Berliner Morgenpost” refers the Berlin police to the fact that the investigations into the threatening letters from “NSU 2.0” were conducted by the LKA Hessen. A “regular and intensive exchange” took place with the departments responsible there to assess possible risks. An “actual threat” did not arise in the Kocak case “taking into account all the threatening emails in the factual context that were already known there at that time”. The LKA Hessen nevertheless promised to inform Kocak about the mails at the time.

Missing warning “scandalous”

But the information did not come. At least that’s what Ferat Kocak says. The deputy cannot understand the police’s assertion that an “actual threat” was not apparent. Because the alleged author of the threatening emails, the long-term unemployed Berliner Alexander M., who was arrested in the middle of last year, may be more of a “racist bully” and less of a violent criminal. When the threatening letter from March 2019 arrived at the Berlin LKA, the officials could not have known.

“I find it scandalous that the police didn’t warn me after the e-mail from March 2019, despite the previous arson attack on my car,” says Kocak. The police meanwhile assure that investigators from the Berlin LKA had held several security talks with Kocak – not after the threatening e-mail from March 2019, but probably because of further e-mails from the so-called “NSU 2.0” from 2020.

Connections between “NSU 2.0” and the Neukölln series of attacks?

Berlin’s parliamentarians should soon be interested in the question of why there was no such security talk after the e-mail of March 2019. Because the SPD, the Greens and the Left in the House of Representatives agreed to set up a parliamentary committee of inquiry in view of a number of alleged failures by the security authorities. The panel is expected to begin its work in the coming months.

The deputies should also deal with the allegation in the threatening emails that “NSU 2.0” was responsible for the arson attack on Kocak’s car. “The committee will have to check whether the LKA has properly investigated this self-accusation and whether there might actually be a connection to the Neukölln series of attacks,” says Kocak.

According to the authority, the police see no such connection. Alexander M., the alleged author of the threatening letter, has had to answer to the district court in Frankfurt am Main since February of this year. The public prosecutor accuses him of having sent a total of 116 threatening letters between August 2018 and March 2021. The charges include threats and insults, incitement to hatred and public incitement to commit crimes.

Alleged arsonists soon in court

The Berlin neo-Nazis Sebastian T. and Tilo P. should soon have to answer in court. The Berlin Attorney General accuses them, among other things, of having carried out the arson attack on Ferat Kocak’s car on February 1, 2018 and another attack on the car of a bookseller in Neukölln. If convicted, the right-wing extremists face several years in prison. However, the indictment has not yet been fully admitted to trial by the court. The arson attacks are part of the right-wing extremist Neukölln series of attacks.

Police have registered more than 70 crimes committed between 2016 and 2019 targeting people known to be active against right-wing extremism. Ferat Kocak hopes that the perpetrators will be held accountable in a legal process. “But that will hardly restore my trust in the work of the police,” says Kocak. “The police let me down. It’s not that easy to fix.”