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Police officers from North Rhine-Westphalia (symbolic picture): 30 officers are under suspicion
Photo: Deutzmann / deutzmann.net / imago / Deutzmann
During the raids on right-wing WhatsApp chats in North Rhine-Westphalia, the investigators discovered official ammunition, a rifle and a small amount of amphetamine in a police officer.
The woman is now being investigated because of the drugs, among other things.
According to the Duisburg public prosecutor's office, the apartment was searched because her boyfriend was suspected to be there.
He is one of the suspects in the chat.
The woman apparently has nothing to do with the chats.
30 police officers are suspected of having sent and received right-wing extremist propaganda in private chat groups for years.
Almost all of them were or are members of a service group in Mülheim an der Ruhr.
The guard there belongs to the Essen Police Headquarters.
The accused's homes and offices were searched on Wednesday.
According to the public prosecutor's office, 43 cell phones, 20 laptops, 9 tablets, two brass knuckles and two pepper sprays were seized during the raids.
The evaluation of the cell phones and computers will take some time because of the amount of data.
Since apparently not all of the 30 suspicious officers are said to have actively sent right-wing extremist messages, only 13 of them are currently under criminal proceedings.
In addition, criminal proceedings are ongoing against the officer who apparently owned drugs.
According to Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU), 14 officials are to be permanently removed from service.
According to SPIEGEL information, some suspects have admitted the postings.
According to this, several police officers are said to have confessed to their own misconduct and stated that the content of the chat does not correspond to their political convictions.
"Great thoughtlessness"?
All are said to have shown themselves to be cooperative with the investigators.
The lawyer of one of the accused had told the dpa news agency that his client was not right-wing extremist and classified his behavior as "great thoughtlessness".
The chats, through which the officials are said to have sent photos of swastikas and Adolf Hitler, probably existed since at least 2012. The fact that no one in the service group apparently denounced this was "the real problem," said North Rhine-Westphalia's Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) in the SPIEGEL interview.
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jpz / dpa