Hate Crimes Trial in Germany

From NBC News:

The surviving member of a neo-Nazi cell went on trial on Monday for a series of racist murders that scandalized Germany and exposed authorities’ inability or reluctance to recognize right-wing hate crime. The chance discovery of the gang, the National Socialist Underground (NSU), which had gone undetected for more than a decade, has forced Germany to acknowledge it has a more militant and dangerous neo-Nazi fringe than previously thought.

Prosecutors say they hose shopkeepers and small business owners as easy targets to try to hound immigrants out of Germany. Some of the victims’ relatives came under suspicion because police simply did not consider a far-right motive. “During the investigations they were either treated as suspects, or as relatives of criminals,” said lawyer Angelika Lex. Parliament is conducting an inquiry into how police and intelligence agencies failed to link the murders or share information about the far-right threat. Read more….

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