Hesse's state police chief Udo Münch offers resignation because of the affair of threatening e

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Udo Münch (archive image): Gives up his post as police chief of Hesse

Photo: Arne Dedert/ picture alliance/dpa

The Hessian state police chief Udo Münch has resigned in connection with the affair of threatening e-mails and a possible right-wing network in the police. Münch had been informed at an early stage that threatening e-mails to the left-wing politician Janine Wissler could be in connection with a query on a police computer, reports the "Wiesbadener Kurier". Münch is said to accuse himself of not having passed on this information.

The computer from which the unauthorized query is said to have originated was located in a police station in Wiesbaden, according to the newspaper report. It is unclear which police officer asked for Wissler's data.

In March, Münch was reported in a video conference of an unauthorized query, said Hesse's Interior Minister Peter Beuth (CDU) of the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung". The chief of police did not consciously perceive the minutes of the conversation and the facts. For this reason, he was not informed, Beuth said. He agreed with Münch "that such outstanding information - both for the investigation and for the political evaluation of these threats, should have been immediate."

According to Beuth, Münch had credibly demonstrated that he had not deliberately left the top of the ministry in the dark about the dimensions of the investigation. Nevertheless, Münch "as the highest police officer takes responsibility for failures for which he is not solely responsible." Beuth said that he only learned about the second data retrieval, which is said to have been carried out by a police computer in February, from Münch last Wednesday.

Wissler had already received two threatening letters signed "NSU 2.0" in February. At the beginning of July, according to Beuth, another threatening e-mail was sent to the deputy federal chairman of the Left Party and other addressees of the Hessian state parliament. Prime Minister Volker Bouffier (CDU) and he himself had also received this mail, the interior minister reported. After receiving the first e-mails, Wissler spoke of a death threat. There was also talk of numerous right-wing extremist references.

In the meantime, there is apparently another case of unauthorized data retrieval from the Hessian police. The cabaret artist Idil Baydar also reports on threatening and abusive letters. The 45-year-old made serious accusations against the police in this context. She would like to feel safe again, "and not have the feeling that I have to be afraid of the police," she told the ARD "Mittagsmagazin". "This is an obscure situation. And that's where I wish that the police would approach me from their point of view."

bbr/AFP/dpa