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Peter Beuth (archive picture): "All police employees must be aware at all times that any wrongdoing will be investigated immediately and resolutely."
Photo: Boris Roessler / dpa
According to the Hessian Interior Minister Peter Beuth (CDU), none of the police officers accused in connection with right-wing extremist chats should be active for a special unit in the country.
"In view of the allegations, it is already clear to me - regardless of the outcome of the criminal investigation - that none of these accused persons will work for a Hessian special unit", Beuth announced in Wiesbaden.
"Where the allegations make it legally possible, we will also remove them from the Hessian police."
The investigation is carried out against a number of police officers from a special task force (SEK).
It concerns the suspicion of using symbols of unconstitutional organizations and other criminal offenses.
The Frankfurt police chief Gerhard Bereswill had said shortly beforehand that the active officers concerned had been banned from performing their duties.
One of the officials, against whom the Mainz public prosecutor has been investigating for a long time, will be suspended.
The fact that police officers and, moreover, a highly specialized unit exchanging such chats with each other was "completely unacceptable," said Beuth.
"All police employees must be aware at all times that any wrongdoing will be investigated immediately and resolutely." The current case is further evidence that the police still have a lot of work to do in this regard.
In the morning, the emergency services searched the homes of six suspects and their workplaces in the Frankfurt am Main police headquarters.
A spokeswoman for the public prosecutor said that those affected were officers from a special task force (SEK).
A total of 20 men are being investigated, including a former police officer and 19 officers on active duty.
The investigators accuse 17 of the 20 suspects of actively disseminating seditious content and images of a former National Socialist organization as participants in chat groups.
Investigations were started against the other three accused because they were participants in the chat groups and, as superiors, did not prevent communication and punished them.
It is not yet known whether there is a connection with the chat group with right-wing extremist content discovered almost two years ago in a Frankfurt police station, said the prosecutor's spokeswoman.
The chat contributions in the current case came mainly from the years 2016 and 2017. The last relevant content was found in small numbers in chats from the beginning of 2019.
wit / dpa / AFP
