Even years after Oury Jalloh's death, people are campaigning for clarification (archive image)
Photo: Peter Endig / dpa
Almost 17 years after the death of the asylum seeker Oury Jalloh in a police cell in Dessau, an initiative wants to prove that Jalloh was set on fire with a new fire test and a film.
For this purpose, the situation in the police cell was simulated on January 7, 2005 by a commissioned British fire protection expert and an artificial body was doused with gasoline and set on fire, as the initiative explained in a press conference.
The course of the fire was filmed with several cameras and the final state was compared with photos from the real scene of the fire.
Fire protection expert Iain Peck said he believed the results showed that it was most likely that Jalloh was doused with a liquid such as gasoline and ignited.
After the fire test with 2.5 liters of gasoline, the replica of the cell, the mattress and the artificial body were in a similar burned state as the body of Jalloh in the original cell, as can be seen in photos.
Such a fire and such severe scorch marks would not be possible without petrol.
A comparable fire report was presented earlier by the initiative.
Jalloh, an asylum seeker from Africa, was drunk and drugged when he burned to death while lying on a mattress in his cell.
It is still unclear whether he lit the mattress himself.
The exact circumstances of the death could not be clarified in two trials.
One police officer was convicted in 2012 for failing to ensure that Jalloh was properly supervised.
Two special investigators found numerous errors by the police and other authorities in a 300-page investigation report.
kim / dpa