Around four years after the assassination of the Kassel district president Walter Lübcke, the Hessian state parliament presented the final report of the committee of inquiry. It also names mistakes made by the security authorities, for example when observing the right-wing extremist:
“In retrospect, however, there is no question that Stephan Ernst is dangerous. From today’s perspective, the decision not to continue monitoring him was incorrect,” says the more than 600-page document. First, the Hessian Broadcasting (hr) reported.
Parties present different reports
Next Wednesday, the state parliament will debate the final report and the dissenting votes on the committee. In addition to the report approved by the black-green coalition, there are three separate assessments (separate votes) from the opposition factions.
It was not possible to agree on a single balance sheet – the six factions had sometimes drawn different conclusions from the work of the 15-member committee of inquiry. The four final reports are several hundred pages long.
Rückblick 2019
The CDU politician was shot dead by right-wing extremist Stephan Ernst in 2019. The following year, a committee of inquiry was set up to investigate the role of the security authorities in the murder case.
Criticism had been raised against the authorities – for example in relation to alleged failures in the disclosure of information. The main question is whether the crime could have been prevented. The convicted murderer Ernst was on record as a right-wing extremist, but was no longer under the special surveillance of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution at the time of the crime.
“The investigative committee cannot answer the question of whether the murder could have been prevented in a fact-based manner,” the report says. It was never the order to work on this question.
And: “As a political investigative body, the investigative committee was tasked with analyzing the specific areas in which the Hessian security authorities made mistakes and who was responsible for them.” There are also detailed evaluations of the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the police authorities with regard to, for example, information gathering, staff shortages and internal coordination such as cooperation with other authorities.
