On February 3rd 2008, a deadly blaze destroyed an old building in downtown Ludswighafen, Germany, burning 9 people of Turkish origin alive. The hideous crime has yet to be enlightened by German authorities up to this date despite several information indicating a xenophobic attack.
The final report investigating the fire ruled out the possibility of electrical fire as there was no electricity circuit near where the fire broke out. However, the prosecution concluded that it was not a xenophobic arson attack either despite several information indicating an hate crime.
A picture of a kid being thrown from the fourth floor to the fire fighters went viral
The testimony from two young girls who said they had seen a man in the building’s entrance laying a fire has been determined to be false by the investigators on the bases that the girls made up a story to find a solution. Reports later revealed that a police sketch over the girls’ depiction matched a suspected Neonazi but authorities never shared the report with the media. German authorities simply ignored the information that the building had been daubed with neo-Nazi symbols weeks prior to the inferno and that it had once before been the target of an arson attack.
Turkish then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited the blaze site
Turkish-German journalist Ismail Erel also draws attention a overlooked connection between the inferno and the infamous German terror group NSU. Erel reminds that a former NeoNazi known by the name of Theodor Werz wrote a letter to the authorities claiming that the fire that killed 9 Turks is connected to NSU terror group. German authorities has dismissed the letter as the other information indicating that the blaze was a racist attack directed at the Turks living in the building. Existence of a terror group called NSU was not yet recognized by the German authorities at the time in 2008 as police were busy pointing finger at families and the Turkish community. German public was made aware of such terror group three years later by another letter exposing that the serial murders was a work of a terror group targeting Turks.
Turkish people in Germany have suffered other deadly arson attacks in Solingen, Mölln and elsewhere. No one in 12 years have been convicted for burning alive 9 Turks and injured 60 people in Ludswighafen fire.
Diaspora Daily 