After evidence from the premises of the Criminal Investigation Department about the abuse case of Lügde disappeared, prosecutors and special investigators assume that the evidence is not found due to careless handling. That informed the prosecutor Detmold.
The agency does not believe that the evidence was stolen. However, theft can not be ruled out. So far, however, there would have been no sufficient factual evidence.
For this reason, a preliminary investigation - even against unknown - at the prosecutor Detmold not pending, said the authority. The current process is just a test process. In doing so, current knowledge would be collected.
On Thursday it was announced that a suitcase and a case with about 155 data carriers are missing for several weeks in the district police department Lippe. Regional Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) therefore used a team of special investigators. Reul spoke of police studies, he was stunned.
The missing media had already been spotted, but only three of them were backed up. According to investigators were on it music, movies and photos of boys and girls, including shots of diving. Whether there is child pornography material on the missing data carriers is unclear. On January 30, according to the Interior Ministry, there was a lack of evidence.
Room was not secured as required
The room in which the evidence was, was also not secured as prescribed. The police officer who spotted the material was also not sufficiently qualified for it, said state criminal director Dieter Schürmann SPIEGEL.
In the scandal about the missing pieces of evidence now also the federation of German Kriminalbeamter (BDK) turns on. He raises allegations against the North Rhine-Westphalian state government. "We are not talking about a police department, where everything is fine, but on the contrary," said Sebastian Fiedler, federal and NRW state chairman of the BDK Westdeutscher Rundfunk. "For several years, my colleagues in Lippe have pointed out that they are working at the limit."
At the end of January, the abuse case in Lügde became known. Three men are in custody, including the alleged main culprit Andreas V. Since 2008, he is said to have abused children again and again, including his today eight-year-old foster daughter. The police assume at least 31 victims and a thousand individual acts. The investigators confiscated thousands of child porn files, the data volume is 14 terabytes.
In custody are also sitting the 33-year-old Mario S., who is said to have also abused children, and a 48-year-old from Stade, who is said to have persecuted the abuse by live chat.
The prosecutor Detmold also investigates employees of the youth welfare offices Hameln-Pyrmont and Lippe, it is about the suspicion of violation of the care or education obligation. Already in 2016 there had been hints on Andreas V., which might not have been followed up. Also against two Lipper police officers is therefore determined.
On Tuesday, the Hamelin district administrator Tjark Bartels had to admit that the head of the youth welfare office after the arrest of the main suspect Andreas V. in the abuse case manipulated the files and subsequently added a "smoothing" note. Moreover, he had backdated the note. The youth office leader was released from the service.