Amnesty International Report 1995 - Germany

There were numerous allegations of torture or ill-treatment of detainees by police officers throughout the year. Two people died in police custody in disputed circumstances. The majority of the victims of alleged torture or ill-treatment were foreign nationals, including asylum-seekers, or members of ethnic minorities. A high proportion of cases involved officers of the Berlin police force. In April Bülent Demir, a 17-year-old German Turk, alleged that Berlin police officers had punched him in the kidneys and face and kicked him in the head after they had caught him spraying the wall of a house with paint. Medical certificates showed that he had suffered bruises, abrasions, two broken teeth and a broken finger which required surgery. He was later charged with resisting state authority. In May journalist Oliver Neß alleged that he was assaulted by police officers while reporting on a demonstration in central Hamburg. According to both the journalist and a friend who witnessed the assault, two officers pinned Oliver Neß to the ground while a third removed his right shoe and deliberately and violently rotated his foot at the ankle, tearing the ligaments. Officers also allegedly punched him in the face and hit him repeatedly in the kidneys, pelvis and chest with their batons. In August there were reports that po-lice officers in the federal states of Berlin and Brandenburg had, over a period of more than a year, subjected Vietnamese detainees to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. In a typical case Nguyen T., an asylum-seeker, alleged that he was punched and repeatedly kicked when plainclothes police officers stopped him and his wife in the street in the east Berlin district of Pankow in June. The residents of nearby flats were reportedly so alarmed by his screams that one of them called the police. Nguyen T. alleged that his ill-treatment continued in the police car which took him to a nearby police station, and at the station itself. His injuries included multiple bruising to his body and a hairline fracture of the bone under his left eye. Decisions were reached by prosecuting and judicial authorities on a number of cases of alleged ill-treatment by police in previous years (see Amnesty International Report 1994). In February the Bremen prosecuting authorities rejected an appeal from Mehmet S. against an earlier decision not to bring charges against police officers accused of ill-treating him. Mehmet S., a Turkish Kurd, had alleged that in March 1992, when he was 14 years old, police officers had broken his arm while arresting him. In its decision to reject the appeal, the Bremen Public Procurator's Office stated that medical experts had been unable to clarify exactly how the injury to Mehmet S. had occurred. In March the prosecuting authorities in Rostock brought charges of "arson by negligence" against two senior police officers in connection with racist attacks on an asylum hostel in Rostock-Lichtenhagen in August 1992. Over 100 Vietnamese workers housed next to the hostel had been left unprotected after the police withdrew their forces for over an hour. During their absence rioters set fire to the building, forcing the Vietnamese residents to escape on to the roof. In September a Berlin court imposed substantial fines on three Berlin police officers found guilty of ill-treating Habib J. in December 1992. The Iranian student had alleged that after he was assaulted by a bus driver, police officers had thrown him roughly into a police van and had racially abused him and hit him in the face at the police station. The three officers appealed against their conviction. In September a Hamburg court ruled that there was insufficient evidence to open trial proceedings against three officers charged in June with causing serious bodily harm to Frank Fennel. He had been badly beaten by members of a special police unit in July 1991. A court later awarded him compensation for his injuries, which included concussion, multiple bruising and abrasions, and a bruised kidney. Frank Fennel appealed against the court's decision. In October the Brandenburg Higher Regional Court of Appeal ruled that three officers charged with failing to intervene in a racist attack on Amadeu Antonio Kiowa could not be tried owing to lack of evidence. Amadeu Antonio Kiowa, an Angolan immigrant worker, had been kicked and beaten unconscious by a gang of right-wing extremists in November 1990. He later died of his injuries. Two detainees died in police custody in disputed circumstances. In June Halim Dener, a 16-year-old Turkish Kurd, was shot in the back by a Hanover police officer after being caught putting up posters for an outlawed political party. Contradictory reports were received about the shooting. Some suggested that the officer's gun had gone off accidentally after he had stumbled. Others alleged that the officer had deliberately aimed his gun at Halim Dener. Following a criminal investigation the officer concerned was charged in December with causing the death of Halim Dener through negligence. In August Kola Bankole died at Frankfurt am Main airport following an attempt by the Federal Border Police to deport him to Nigeria. A doctor accompanying the rejected asylum-seeker had reportedly injected him with a sedative when he physically resisted the attempts to deport him. Kola Bankole died 25 minutes later. A criminal investigation was opened into the actions of the doctor. In January the Schwerin Public Procurator's Office closed its investigation into the death of Wolfgang Grams, concluding that the suspected Red Army Faction member had not been deliberately killed by a member of an anti-terrorist unit, but had committed suicide (see Amnesty International Report 1994). Amnesty International expressed its concern to the German authorities about allegations of torture and ill-treatment and about the death in custody of Halim Dener. The organization was informed that criminal investigations had been opened into all the cases it had raised. In September Amnesty International called for a full investigation into the death of Kola Bankole and the role of medical personnel in cases of forcible deportation. No reply to its letter had been received by the end of the year. In January Amnesty International published a report entitled Federal Republic of Germany: Police ill-treatment of detainees in Hamburg in which it criticized the Hamburg authorities for failing to prosecute or discipline police officers responsible for ill-treating detainees in their custody.