African killed by racist German police?
Published: December 09, 2008
DESSAU, Germany, Dec. 9 (UPI) -- A German court has acquitted two police officers in the mysterious death of an asylum applicant from Africa, sparking tumultuous protests in the courtroom.
The court in Dessau in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt acquitted one of the officers of negligent manslaughter and the other of bodily harm in connection with the Jan. 7, 2005, death of 23-year-old Oury Jalloh from Sierra Leone.
Representatives of a German-African citizens' group shouted in anger as the judge read the verdict, calling it "shameful" and the court a "murder house."
Jalloh was arrested after allegedly harassing a group of women; police bound the feet and hands of the intoxicated man, who allegedly torched his mattress in his cell, dying roughly 6 minutes after the fire broke out.
Prosecutors have said the police reacted negligently, willingly accepting the death of the asylum seeker. Police in Saxony-Anhalt have been repeatedly accused of racist behavior.
Judge Martin Steinhoff, reading his decision, said he felt the acquittal was a poor verdict, as he had no choice but to put an end to the trial because he couldn't shed any greater light onto the real circumstance of the man's death.
"We didn't have the chance for a trial in accordance with the rule of law," the judge was quoted by German newspaper Die Welt as saying.
The judge lambasted the officers and their colleagues for making false testimonies, protecting the accused and perverting the course of justice.
Yet, as no one was able to prove police wrongdoings, the officers had to be acquitted, he said.
"This proceeding has failed," he added.
http://www.metimes.com/Security/2008/12/09/african_killed_by_racist_ger…
http://thecaravan.org
https://thevoiceforum.org
http://initiativeouryjalloh.wordpress.com
Videos:
Tribute in Memory of Oury Jalloh - 14:55 - Nov 22, 2008
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http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8238640172468957863&ei=1RcrSZL…
Mumia Abu-Jamal Mobilisierungsvideo für die Demonstration am 2.8.2008
http://www.umbruch-bildarchiv.de/bildarchiv/ereignis/020808oury_jalloh…
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Crime | 12.12.2008
Appeal Court to Hear German Police Racism Claim
Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: A judge said there wasn't enough evidence to bring charges against the police
Lawyers alleging police racism have filed appeals in Germany against the acquittal of two officers accused of letting a black man burn to death in a cell. The judge on the case has defended his ruling.
Oury Jalloh, 23, who had been arrested for molesting women while drunk, was killed by the fire when his mattress caught fire in the cell in Rosslau, 100 kilometers south-west of Berlin, two years ago.
Angry German militants accused police of lying and screamed "Liar!" at Judge Manfred Steinhoff when he said there was not enough evidence to convict the officers. Both the prosecutor and lawyers representing the Jalloh family in Sierra Leone filed appeals in federal court on legal grounds, a court spokesman in Rosslau said on Thursday, Dec. 11.
In a statement to the parliament of Saxony-Anhalt, the state's premier Wolfgang Boehmer said, "My government understands the outrage of the dead man's family and friends at the lack of a finding over this incident.
"But we ask for their understanding that the discovery of the truth and administration of justice can only be done by the rules of law by an independent judiciary."
He also indirectly referred to claims by anti-racist groups that other police may have lied to protect the two officers of the watch in the police station.
"This government expects its public servants, and all its other employees, to contribute to establishing the truth and to help defend this state from harm," he said.
Ugly incident not the first
Jalloh, an immigrant who had applied for German political asylum, died from the heat of the flames as he lay in the cell, bound hand and foot. Police say the flames came from his own cigarette lighter.
Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: The man was trapped in his jail cell during the fire
The court was told the station commander, now 48, turned off a smoke alarm and went on working. Police said Jalloh was left in handcuffs and leg restraints on January 7, 2005 because he was drunk and violent to officers.
The 22-month trial was held in a part of former East Germany where several ugly racist incidents have occurred in the past. An Oury Jalloh Memorial Committee was set up to press charges and pay the lawyers.
Judge Steinhoff went outside the court on Monday evening to try to discuss the verdict with the inflamed demonstrators on the street, but they verbally abused him.
DPA news agency (ls)
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,3869290,00.html
Germany | 08.12.2008
German Police Officers Cleared of Prisoner's Death
Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Tensions between asylum seekers and police frequently boiled over during the case
Angry members of the public shouted in a German court Monday, Dec. 8 as two policemen were acquitted of the 2005 death of a handcuffed Sierra Leonean in a police cell.
Oury Jalloh, 23, was killed by the fire when his mattress caught fire in the cell in Rosslau, 100 kilometers south-west of Berlin.
Police contended he was drunk and violent, and set alight to his bedding while using his cigarette lighter, which he had concealed.
The state court ruled that it could not be proved the two police officers on watch bore any blame for his death in January 7, 2005.
The 22-month trial near Dessau, in a part of former East Germany where several ugly racist incidents have occurred in the past, has attracted attention from rights groups outside Germany, with an Oury Jalloh Memorial Committee set up to press charges.
Critics alleging police racism contended that Jalloh, who was an applicant for German political asylum, could not have lit the fire while wearing handcuffs and leg-irons. At the verdict, some stood up and shouted their disapproval.
The presiding judge, Manfred Steinhoff, was unable to explain the verdict because of the interruption, and called police to remove the protesters.
Lawyer Regina Goetz, representing Jalloh's mother, accused the police of a cover-up "with so many concealments and blunders that the truth can never be discovered."
Jalloh had earlier been charged with molesting women and resisting police on duty.
But the public prosecutor said before the verdict that the main officer on watch could only be accused of manslaughter by negligence, while no wrongdoing could be proved against his assistant.
Prosecutor Christian Preissner said the senior officer should have reacted to a smoke alarm and immediately taken a fire-extinguisher to Jalloh's cell. Pathologists said he died of heat shock from the fire.
DPA news agency (nda)
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,3858860,00.html
Court acquits police officers implicated in asylum-seeker’s death
By Ludwig Weller
15 December 2008
Four years ago, asylum-seeker Oury Jalloh burned to death in the cellar of the Dessau police station, in the state of Saxony. Jalloh was shackled to a bed when he died.
Only after a concerted public campaign, and the initiatives of attorneys employed by relatives of the deceased, did the judiciary finally launch a trial two years later against two police officers alleged to be responsible for the death of the 23-year-old asylum-seeker from Sierra Leone.
After a 60-day trial, the court handed down its judgement last Monday, with the presiding judge acquitting the two police officers. The judgement resulted in tumult in the court and left speechless those observing the trial.
With remarkable candour, the presiding judge delivered his own devastating comment on the scandalous judgement: “This has nothing to do with the rule of law.”
The judge, Manfred Steinhoff, declared that the trial had failed because of the determination of the police authorities to do everything possible to cover up the involvement of police officers in the burning death of Oury Jalloh.
This was not due to any lack of evidence of witnesses. An editorial in the Berliner Zeitung concluded with the following: “The police—the very authorities that are supposed to uphold the rule of law—have undermined the legal process, in the end preventing the conviction of the accused.”
If one were to believe the police accounts, the young African was arrested on the morning of January 7, 2005, because he had harassed two women in order to use their mobile phone. He was then taken to the Dessau police station because he was very drunk, where a doctor took a blood sample, which the young man resisted. He was “searched thoroughly” by the police officers before being placed in a cell in the building’s basement, where he was shackled to a bed with his arms and legs outstretched.
According to the public prosecutor, the following then occurred: Patrol group leader Andreas S., 48, and leading patrol officer Beate H., 39, were sitting upstairs in the police station. A video camera allowed them to observe the corridor in front of the cells, but there were no cameras inside the cells, on budgetary grounds. Over the course of the morning, the cell in which Jalloh lay bound was checked twice.
At 10:30 a.m., Beate H. switched on the intercom system. According to the report of the investigation, she justified this on the grounds that even a person being kept in a cell should have the opportunity to be heard. And indeed, Oury Jalloh’s cries and calls for assistance could not be missed. The reaction of Andreas S. consisted of turning down the volume on the intercom system. Beate H. is said to have turned the volume back up. At 11:45 a.m., she decided to check the cell. When Jalloh complained about his shackles being too tight, she answered saying she had no authority to do anything and went back upstairs again.
At 12:00 noon, the smoke alarm in Jalloh’s cell went off. Beate H. described what then happened. Patrol group leader Andreas S. switched off the alarm. But the alarm immediately started again. He picked up the cell key and switched off the alarm a second time. She asked him to hurry up. At this instant, the smoke detector sounded from the corridor in front of the cells.
Andreas S. then started to move downstairs, telling a colleague to come with him. When the two officers opened the cell door, dense black smoke poured out. Andreas S. turned round and ran back upstairs, calling for a fire extinguisher. His colleague grabbed a blanket and ran into the cell, where he saw a man lying burning on the mattress. He was unable to determine whether he was still alive; he was also unable to release him as he did not have the keys. Oury Jalloh was burned alive.
Questions remain why the police officers risked the life of the African asylum-seeker through their ignorant behaviour and, above all, how the fire started. The investigation and witness testimony regarding these issues are both contradictory and dubious.
As is so often in the case in attacks on foreigners, right-wing extremist violence, or offences committed by the police, from the start the public prosecutor excluded the consideration of any far-right or political implications.
The asylum-seeker support organisation PRO ASYL has also pointed to this fact. The press statement of December 9, 2008, from the national refugee charity Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Flüchtlinge e.V. was titled “The death of Oury Jalloh remains unpunished.”
According to this statement, “The court quickly accepted the public prosecutor’s unproven thesis that Oury Jalloh, bound hand and foot to a fireproof mattress, started the fire himself. Not only was this unproven, alternative scenarios, including intervention by some third party, were also insufficiently investigated. From the start, the public prosecutor and the court did not want to think the unthinkable. Early on in the proceedings, the court concentrated on the minutes after the outbreak of the fire, however it had developed, and thus on the question of whether the prompt action of the principal accused Andreas S. might still have saved Oury Jalloh.”
The public prosecutor revealed that the charred remains of a lighter were found in the fire debris in the cell. Another of the accused, Hans-Ulrich M., claims not to have found this when he searched the arrested man. Then on the 54th (!) day of the trial, another police officer emerged as a witness, who said he heard from a colleague that Hans Ulrich M., after he had helped put Jalloh into the cell, was missing his lighter. Hans Ulrich M. then said this was indeed what had happened.
To support the thesis that Jalloh had killed himself, the court had a police officer of Jalloh’s size shackled in exactly the way he had been. This showed that it was possible, albeit involving enormous acrobatic efforts, to remove a lighter from the trouser pockets or from inside the underwear, and then set fire to the “highly flammable” mattress. He only needed to hold the lighter underneath it for long enough.
This was the kind of hypothesis upon which the accused Hans-Ulrich M. and Andreas S. were finally acquitted.
Even court testimony from forensic pathologists had no influence on the judgement. According to this testimony, even had Oury Jalloh not been burned to death by the still unresolved issue of the fire, the stress position in which he was shackled meant he may well have suffered heart failure or have suffocated on his vomit.
In its press statement, PRO ASYL reaches a striking conclusion: The court failed to fully clarify what had happened “not least because it confronted a wall of silence on the part of the police witnesses and a plethora of failures in the investigation, which in their entirety permitted the conclusions that on that day, anything was possible in cell number 5 in the Dessau police station. In his verbal findings, the presiding judge found clear words to describe these conditions—against this background, due process of law was not possible. The acquittals in Dessau are indications of a crisis in the rule of law.”
The behaviour of the Dessau police and public prosecutor is not an isolated occurrence. It recalls the worst instances of arbitrary police actions, in which its corporate attitudes, contradictions, cover-ups, failed investigations, sloppiness, and untenable hypotheses are a commonplace.
During the trial of the neo-Nazis who murdered the Mozambican Alberto Adriano in Dessau in the summer 2000, it was revealed that the Dessau police regularly went “hunting” for Africans in the city park. Claiming there was suspicion of drug dealing, Africans were publicly stripped and searched. At that time, a preliminary investigation was mounted into three policemen who had beaten and kicked an 18-year-old African at the police station.
Xenophobic and right-wing extremist attitudes are not only common among police officers in Dessau. A new study by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation came to the conclusion that 40 percent of officials in Saxony Anhalt held anti-foreigner attitudes. Similar results were found in other German states. For years, there have been numerous violent attacks by police officers against foreigners, asylum-seekers and the homeless. According to one study, in 2004 in Berlin only 7 out of 766 cases of bodily injury caused by the police resulted in charges being laid. Only two of these cases ended with a conviction.
It should also not go unmentioned that the far right had positioned people in the Dessau courtroom throughout the recent trial. Their presence not only constituted a tremendous provocation against Jalloh’s friends and defence team, the attendance of these neo-Nazis was obviously intended to bolster the police as well. Neo-Nazi web sites attacked the proceedings as a “show trial” organised by the “left” against upstanding German police officers.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/dec2008/poli-d15.shtml