Even after two months, there are still many unanswered questions about the killing spree among Jehovah’s Witnesses. The opposition calls for more transparency in the interior committee.
Leading domestic politicians from the opposition in the Hamburg Parliament put pressure on the processing of the killing spree among Jehovah’s Witnesses. There are still a few unanswered questions, in particular how the weapons authorities deal with warnings. “The story that the killing spree could not have been prevented is collapsing like a house of cards,” criticized Deniz Çelik from the Left Party in an interview with t-online.
Dennis Gladiator (CDU) also considers previous statements by Interior Senator Andy Grote (SPD) to be no longer acceptable. “It wasn’t done properly and everything legally possible wasn’t done,” said Gladiator a day before the second meeting of the interior committee, which is to deal with the killing spree.
“Information policy in slices must stop now”
Both domestic policy spokesmen for their parliamentary groups say: It was not the authorities who ensured transparency, but journalists. “Only what is said and admitted is what is already on the table,” says Gladiator. “This information policy in bits and pieces has to stop now,” adds Çelik.
Since the shooting, in which eight people died, various media, including t-online, had repeatedly brought the authorities into an explanation. t-online reported that the warnings about the later perpetrator Philipp F. had reached the weapons authority of the Hamburg police earlier than was initially known. Read more here. An employee of the weapons authority is now being investigated – among other things, because of negligent homicide.
Was there really only one official who knew about the warning?
“The public is presented with a pawn sacrifice,” says Çelik. “Before the committee, the question arises for me whether really only one employee of the weapons authority knew.” The question of why the authority was no longer able to find out more about Philipp F. after the anonymous letter was sent has not yet been finally clarified. CDU man Gladiator takes the same line: “Everything is being done to make it look as if no mistakes were made. And if they were, it was only individual people.”
Since the killing spree, the debate about stricter gun laws has also picked up speed. Interior Senator Grote pleads for it again and again. “That’s basically correct, but in this case it distracts from the actual problem,” says Gladiator. “There are obviously major structural problems with the weapons authority, and the Interior Senator has a duty to create the political framework for this.”
Before the interior committee meets on Thursday evening, the two experts on domestic policy demand transparency and truthfulness. “The interior senator and the chief of police must finally correct their blatant misjudgments. It cannot be that we are given information that later turns out to be untrue,” Çelik clarifies. Like his counterpart on the left, however, Dennis Gladiator does not believe that the communication style of the interior senator and the police leadership will change, both tell t-online.
