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Hanau / Wiesbaden (dpa / lhe) - The lawyers of the Hanau victim families have made serious allegations against the police authorities a good year after the racially motivated attack.
In a letter to the Hessian Ministry of the Interior with an administrative complaint, they had accused the police forces and authorities of "having facilitated or not prevented the murder of the perpetrator in Hanau through negligence in breach of official duty," said the "Initiative on February 19, Hanau" on Wednesday.
The 43-year-old German Tobias R. shot nine people for racist motives in Hanau on February 19, 2020.
Survivors and relatives of the victims had come together in the initiative.
They are represented by the former Hessian Minister of Justice, attorney Rupert von Plottnitz, and the constitutional lawyer Günter Frankenberg.
The supervisory complaint is directed against the Hessian police authorities involved in the operation after the attack, said Plottnitz of the German press agency.
Specifically, the supervisory complaint concerns an emergency exit door at the second of the two crime scenes that may have been locked on the night of the crime, as well as the "technically inadequate and understaffed emergency call system" of the Hanau police station, the message said.
The lawyers also complain about failures in dealing with relatives.
The families were not informed of the death of their relatives for hours, said von Plottnitz.
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The interior ministry's lawyers set a deadline of April 23 to “compensate for the material and immaterial damage caused by the above-mentioned failures,” the statement said.
"If the Interior Ministry again refuses to address the points of failure presented by our lawyers, we will file an official liability suit with the competent court," said Armin Kurtović on behalf of the victims' families.
His son Hamza was killed in the attack.
At the beginning of February this year, Interior Minister Peter Beuth (CDU) admitted that the emergency call to the Hanau police station was on the night of the crime, but at the same time emphasized that the officers were nevertheless at the first crime scene within one to two minutes.
At the same time, he rejected the accusation that the emergency exit had been locked on police orders.
"The Hessian police would never give instructions that go against the law," said the minister.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210324-99-952407 / 3