Kleve: Death of Prisoner Amad A.

The death of an innocent detained Syrian in Kleve in Lower Rhine may yet again be a case for the judiciary. A family lawyer from Amad A., who died after a fire, filed a complaint against the termination of the case on behalf of the parents.

"In the entire decision there is no indication of who - except the one who died himself - is responsible for the death and unlawful deprivation of liberty," according to a statement by lawyers Sven Tamer Forst and Eberhard Reinecke, which is available to SPIEGEL.

Reinecke has taken over the mandate, according to own statements only about two weeks ago, shortly before the termination of the investigation had become known. At the beginning of November, the public prosecutor's office stated that none of the eight defendants had confirmed the suspicion of a criminal offense.

Doubts, allegations, misunderstandings

The lawyers' statement states: "According to our previous assessment, the investigation of the prosecutor's office seems not to have been aimed at actually finding out what deviant behavior it has been, but above all an obvious judicial scandal should be trivialized."

In the press release of a spokesman for the family, which is the SPIEGEL, come also the parents of the deceased Syrian to speak. "Why was the procedure completed?" Said the father. "I can not understand that, in my eyes the facts are not clear."

The mother is quoted as saying: "The unlawful arrest and the fire in the cell with its consequences do not fall from the sky! After all, there are people behind it and those responsible should also be held accountable for their mistakes!"

Recently, it was said by the prosecutor and the North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of Justice, Amad A. was not mentally ill at the time of the fire, according to an expert opinion. The law enforcement officials could not have known that Amad A. had been endangered. He pressed the call system about 15 minutes after the fire.

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Experts had expressed doubts about the opinion on which the assessment was based. The case also caused quite a stir because A. was imprisoned only for a mistake. In a police operation his personal details were apparently confused. The prosecutor also stopped the investigation in this point.

The Syrian was mistakenly imprisoned in July 2018 for a warrant issued to a Malian named Amedy G. Amad A. was a fair-skinned man, Amedy G. is black. (Read more about the confusion here.)

Amad A. had spent innocent weeks in prison and finally set fire to himself in his cell. He suffered such severe burns that he died two weeks after the incident in a clinic. The case also employs the state parliament: this had set up a committee of inquiry in November 2018.