Could at least some of the victims of the Hanau attack still be alive if the authorities had done their duty?

The question that has been the subject of controversy since the night of the crime on February 19-20 of last year is currently being answered by the bereaved.

The Landtag's committee of inquiry has invited their representatives to its first four meetings.

Ewald Hetrodt

Correspondent for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung in Wiesbaden.

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Etris Hashemi is one of them.

He lost his brother in the “Arena Bar” and survived seriously injured himself.

On Monday morning he presented the MPs with an expert opinion.

It is supposed to support the thesis that the people whom the perpetrator attacked in the bar could have escaped through the emergency exit.

But was it open or closed?

Emergency exit not accessible

On this question, which has also been controversial for almost two years, Hashemi expressed himself differently in the course of his survey.

The 25-year-old business informatics student initially said that no one knew on the night of the crime whether the door was open.

He later said that it was locked.

When FDP MP Hahn made him aware of this discrepancy, Hashemi said it was "relatively clear" that the emergency exit was not accessible.

But he also said there was a "fifty-fifty chance" to escape through the door.

As reported, the public prosecutor's office has stopped its extensive investigations into the emergency exit because it simply cannot be determined whether it was open or locked at the time of the crime.

Emergency call system out of date

Hashemi's appearance was preceded by the questioning of Niculescu Paun.

His son was killed by the shooter after he followed him to the second crime scene in his car.

Before that, he had tried several times in vain to make an emergency call.

It is undisputed that the technology in Hanau was out of date.

Paun believes that if she had been up to date, his son would have reached the police.

That would have stopped him from pursuing the perpetrator and his son would still be alive.

That's how he sees it, father.

The public prosecutor's office, however, has also stopped its relevant investigation in this case.

Then the caller dialed twice.

In addition, there is “a high probability” that none of the other three dialing attempts have technically reached one of the two emergency call centers in Hanau, according to the public prosecutor.

Emis Gürbüz was not as sober as Hashemi and Paun. Her son Sedat was the third casualty of the night. "Germany wiped my child out of the world," she complained. “We are living corpses.” In her motherly pain, the fifty-two-year-old spared no one, neither the city of Hanau nor her place of residence in Dietzenbach, where she fought for an honorary grave for her son.

She raises a serious allegation against the Hessian Prime Minister Volker Bouffier (CDU).

He told her in a personal conversation that he had seen worse in his profession as a lawyer.

Bouffier is "a heartless, callous old man," said Gürbüz.

The State Chancellery does not comment on statements in committees of inquiry, said the spokesman for the state government.

However, he ruled out that the Prime Minister had expressed himself in the manner cited.

Autopsy without relatives' permission?

So far, the committee of inquiry has interviewed nine out of ten invited survivors. Again and again they complained about the communication of the authorities. Some were not officially informed about the death of their relatives or only very late. In several cases, the autopsy is said to have taken place without the permission of the relatives. The accusation of improper handling of the corpses took up a lot of space. Several witnesses were dissatisfied with the offers of psychological care. Some complained that the federal and state victim ombudsmen had not yet given them any help.

In the meantime, the state parliament announced that the advisory board of the Hessian Victims Fund had decided in mid-December to make the first payments for relatives and survivors of the Hanau attack.

The messages had been sent.

The money will be paid out this year.

In order to protect the families, the amount of money paid is kept confidential.

The fund approved by Parliament in the summer for victims of a serious act of violence or a terrorist attack is endowed with a total of two million euros per budget year.