Merkel vows to get to bottom of murders blamed on neo-Nazis

Berlin: German Chancellor Angela Merkel has vowed to thoroughly investigate a string of murders blamed on neo-Nazis, expressing her shock at the “worst form” of terror linked to right-wing extremists. “I think we must assume that they involve right extremist terror in the worst form and it is a disgrace that such things happen in this country,” Merkel said in a TV interview. A neo-Nazi link with the mysterious murder of nine men of Turkish and Greek origin in different German cities between 2000 and 2006 as well as the shooting of a woman police officer in 2007 came to light after the death of two members of a right-wing extremist group in a blast in their caravan in Eisenach in the eastern Thuringia state on 4 November. A woman accomplice of the two men, identified by police as 36-year-old Beate Z, reportedly set on fire the same day the house they were staying in Zwickaw in the state of Saxony and surrendered to the police a few days later. [caption id=“attachment_130549” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Angela Merkel in this file photo. Reuters.”]  [/caption] The trio belonged to the right-wing extremist group National Socialist Underground (NSU). The Federal High Court in Karlsruhe last evening issued an arrest warrant against Beate Z on “strong suspicion” of a membership in a terrorist organisation. She is believed to have set their house on fire to destroy evidence and hide her involvement in the NSU and in atrocities committed by the group, the prosecutor’s office said. The two men, identified as Uwe B and Uwe M, may have taken their life after a bank robbery fearing that their identity will be exposed, according to police. Investigators believe that eight men of Turkish origin and a migrant from Greece, who owned their small businesses, were “virtually executed” by the neo-nazi gang as all of them were shot on their head with the same weapon from close range. The group is also believed to be responsible for over a dozen bank robberies as well as a series of bomb attacks in the past decade. The Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Karlsruhe has opened investigations into Germany’s longest series of murder after police found at their partially gutted house DVDs containing the NSU propaganda. In a film on the DVD, the group claimed responsibility for the murder series, bank robberies and bomb attacks of the past decade. They also derided their victims and the police, showed their photos and declared that the group will continue their activities “as long as there is no drastic change in the politics, press and freedom of expression”. Police also found several packets of DVDs addressed to various media organisations and Islamic associations, and a cache of arms and ammunition. Meanwhile, the prosecutor’s office ordered the arrest in the case of a fourth suspect, Holger G from Lower Saxony, who until recently supported the group from Zwickau. PTI