Amnesty International Report 2004 - Germany

Covering events from January - December 2003

There was intense public debate about the circumstances in which torture was permissible in Germany. Six police officers were convicted of beating a detainee to death. There were continuing allegations that police officers had ill-treated and used excessive force against detainees. Germany informed the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women of measures it had taken to combat domestic violence. Refugees facing persecution by private individuals were not given adequate protection. It was unclear when criminal proceedings would take place in relation to the death in 1999 of Sudanese asylum-seeker Aamir Ageeb. One man was sentenced to imprisonment after being convicted of involvement in the 11 September 2001 attacks in the USA, and the trial of another suspect collapsed.

Torture debate

A passionate debate about whether torture was acceptable in any circumstances followed a report that a senior police officer had ordered the use of force on a suspect to elicit information from him. In February it emerged that the Vice-President of Frankfurt am Main police, Wolfgang Daschner, had ordered a subordinate officer to use force in an investigation into the kidnap and ransom of an 11-year-old boy. Before the order was given, senior officers reportedly discussed and rejected moral objections to the use of force on the detainee. An officer then threatened the detainee with force during questioning on 1 October 2002 and elicited information about the location of the dead child.

The incident provoked a nationwide discussion on torture. Wolfgang Daschner publicly defended his actions and called for the use of force to be legally permitted during police interrogations as a "last resort" to save human life. A number of leading public figures expressed sympathy with Wolfgang Daschner and stated publicly that they could envisage exceptions to Germany's ban on torture. Such sentiments attracted considerable domestic and international condemnation, including by the Secretary General of the Council of Europe who stated on 21 February: "The European Convention on Human Rights completely outlaws torture, under any circumstances. If we are to build a Europe that truly respects human rights, we must fiercely defend this principle. I shall be asking the Council of Europe's Anti-Torture Committee to examine this incident."

Frankfurt am Main District Court, which tried and convicted the suspect on charges of abduction and murder in July, unequivocally rejected as evidence the "confession" made to the Frankfurt am Main police. The presiding judge stated that the police actions had caused great harm to Germany's culture of rights. Wolfgang Daschner remained in office at the end of 2003, pending a decision on whether to prosecute him.

Death in police custody

Six police officers were given suspended prison sentences after being convicted of beating a detainee to death. They were alleged to have repeatedly hit and kicked 31-year-old Stephan Neisius at Cologne's First Police Inspectorate on 11 May 2002. Later the same evening he was admitted to hospital where he died after 13 days on a life-support system. The six officers were charged with "bodily harm resulting in death" and convicted by Cologne District Court on 25 July. The suspension of their prison sentences of between 12 and 16 months provoked accusations of leniency.

Allegations of police ill-treatment

There were continuing allegations of police ill-treatment and excessive use of force, usually at the time of arrest and in police custody. Most complainants said that they had been kicked and punched, in some instances sustaining serious injuries.

• A 30-year-old partially disabled man was allegedly ill-treated in police custody in Frankfurt am Main. Andre Heech and a friend were arrested for alleged drunken behaviour on 14 February and detained at the Fourth District Police Station. A police officer reportedly hit Andre Heech's right thigh three times with a long metal object, fracturing the thigh bone of his partially amputated leg. He was in considerable pain and required an operation as a result of the assault. To date no response has been received by AI from the German authorities about the incident.

• An investigation was initiated into the reported illtreatment of a 19-year-old man at Cologne's police headquarters on 28 February. It was alleged that at around 4am an official supervising the detention area hit the detainee in the face after the detainee activated the alarm in his cell, breaking his nose and damaging one of his teeth.

• On 15 July three police officers from the state of Thuringia were given suspended prison sentences for seriously injuring two undercover police officers from the state of Schleswig-Holstein. A court in Hamburg convicted them of "dangerous bodily harm" for repeatedly hitting the undercover officers with their batons during a protest against squat clearances in Hamburg on 16 November 2002. The presiding judge was reported to have said that, had the victims been ordinary demonstrators and not police officers, they would never have been able to identify the officers who attacked them. Thuringia's police leadership was also heavily criticized during the trial for attempting to cover up the incident.

Violence against women

In February Germany submitted its fifth periodic report to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. The report described the various measures taken to implement Germany's National Plan of Action to Combat Violence against Women, originally adopted in December 1999. Domestic violence remained a significant problem. More than 40,000 women are estimated to seek refuge in women's shelters each year.

A development highlighted in the report was the enactment of a law in 2002 to prevent violent or threatening men from contacting partners they have abused. The law also provided the legal basis for excluding violent men from the home, by allocating the home to the victims of abuse, albeit only temporarily. The law was accompanied by awareness-raising activities for professionals involved in responding to cases of domestic violence. It was supplemented several months later by a law allowing the removal of a person from the home if they are violent towards children, primarily to protect children but also in acknowledgement that such violence harms women psychologically and serves to intimidate them.

Refugees

Refugees facing persecution by private individuals were still at risk of being denied protection. German courts continued to rule that refugees fearing persecution by non-state actors were excluded from the protection of the 1951 Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights. Germany's definition of persecution in these cases was contrary to international law. People who fled human rights violations affecting the whole population in their country of origin without discrimination were also not protected from forcible return.

• Despite the danger of grave human rights violations for Chechens in the Russian Federation, most claims for asylum by Chechens were rejected. Chechens were therefore denied effective and durable protection in Germany.

• With the exception of Roma and Serbs, Germany began to forcibly return a number of members of other ethnic minorities to Kosovo. In doing so, the authorities did not take into account the human rights violations they might face on their return.

11 September 'terrorist' trials

The trial of Abdelghani Mzoudi unexpectedly collapsed on 11 December after evidence emerged that he had not knowingly participated in the 11 September 2001 attacks in the USA. The 31-year-old Moroccan, detained in October 2002 on suspicion of being an accessory to 3,066 murders, was immediately released from pre-trial detention by a court in Hamburg. The court made the ruling on the basis of the testimony of an unidentified witness, believed to be Ramzi bin al-Shibh, the alleged architect of the 11 September attacks imprisoned in the USA. Ramzi bin al-Shibh had reportedly informed the US authorities during interrogation that only he and the three hijackers who piloted the aircraft knew of the attacks, and that Abdelghani Mzoudi had not knowingly taken part in them. Despite the vital nature of the information, the US authorities reportedly provided it to Germany's Federal Crime Office on condition that it should not be disseminated.

Following the court's decision, an application was lodged for the immediate release of Mounir el-Motassadeq, the only person to be convicted in Germany for their role in the 11 September attacks. In February a court in Hamburg had sentenced the Moroccan student to 15 years' imprisonment for being an accessory to 3,066 murders.

Death during deportation

By the end of 2003, no date had been set for the trial of three police officers charged in connection with the death during deportation of Sudanese asylum-seeker Aamir Ageeb in May 1999. He died while being forcibly sent back from Frankfurt am Main airport to Sudan.

Charges of negligent homicide were filed with Frankfurt am Main District Court in January 2002 against the officers who enforced the deportation.

AI country visits

An AI delegation visited Germany in May to conduct research.