Enlarge image
Flowers and candles lie at the memorial for Malte C. on the steps of the historic town hall on Prinzipalmarkt
Photo: Bernd Thissen / dpa
»Hello Farid«, writes Nuradi A. on a Friday afternoon in October 2017. »I got a B in maths work.
And test 1.«
A. is 15 years old at this time.
He goes to a secondary school in the south of Münster and was promoted to the ninth grade in the summer.
His last report card was not good.
After almost all subjects is "sufficient", three times even "inadequate".
The sheet is adorned with a handwritten note: »I promise to improve my report card as follows«.
New numbers are written behind the printed notes, mainly threes, two twos, even a one.
Resolutions for the next grade level.
He will not reach the goals.
Instead, his life falls apart.
Nuradi A. faces up to 15 years in prison
Around five years later, Nuradi A. was arrested by a homicide detective last Friday.
The now 20-year-old is accused of having injured the 25-year-old trans man Malte C. so badly on the sidelines of Christopher Street Day that he died in the hospital a few days later.
So far, Nuradi A. has been silent on the allegations.
Legally, A. is considered an adolescent, which means that he can be convicted under both juvenile and adult criminal law.
He faces up to 15 years imprisonment for bodily harm resulting in death.
DER SPIEGEL has now been able to talk to A's mother, his siblings and some of his closest friends and view documents that can be used to reconstruct parts of Nuradi A.'s life over the past months and years.
These are chat messages, letters, court documents and testimonies.
They paint the picture of a young man who, despite offers of support, seemed to fall through all the cracks - and recently increasingly chose violence as a last resort.
»He thrives in sport, is ambitious«
The Farid to whom Nuradi A. reported his good grades in October 2017 is Farid Vatanparast, a former competitive boxer and current economics professor.
"Very good," he replied.
“Please send me a photo of it.” He later wrote: “You will also be world champion in school.
I'm sure."
In 2006, Vatanparast launched the “Farids QualiFighting” project in Münster, a “socially integrative sport and education concept” aimed specifically at children and young people from socially deprived areas.
A mandatory requirement for participation in boxing is the regular presentation of certificates.
Anyone who deteriorates at school has to pause training and take private tuition.
The idea met with great approval and was awarded prestigious prizes.
In 2017, the then Prime Minister Armin Laschet took over the patronage of the association that had since been established, and in 2019 more than 160 children were looked after for around 4500 hours.
Among them was Nuradi A, who was born in Russia. "We can rate his social behavior, his willingness to learn and his manners as exemplary," his trainer explained in a letter about half a year after As joined the program.
“We are seeing an extremely positive development in his skills.” When A. and his family were threatened with deportation, the caregivers advocated for them to stay.
Nuradi was actively involved and can be described as "fully integrated" in the project.
"He thrives in sport, is ambitious,"
He lost touch in class
The youngster, who has been training at »Farids QualiFighting« since 2015, was considered a successful boxer.
At 14 he became German champion in the weight class up to 44 kilograms. The city of Münster presented him twice with honorary certificates and medals for "special achievements in the field of sport".
In the photos, A. smiles next to Mayor Markus Lewe.
But while the referee declared him the winner, the youngster lost touch more and more in class.
In February 2018, Vatanparast asked his protégé if he had been to school on time.
"No Farid," answered Nuradi A., "I overslept in the bus, that won't happen again, sorry." Vatanparast then canceled the fight on the following Sunday.
He wrote: "If you don't take your school and training seriously, I cancel everything."
Last Sunday, Vatanparast was sitting at a long dining table in his apartment.
He says he hardly slept.
"I can't believe that Nuradi is said to have killed someone." Last Friday, the 43-year-old attended a rally against violence against queer people in downtown Münster, a reaction to the incident on Christopher Street Day.
Shortly thereafter, he was informed that his former protégé Nuradi A. was the main suspect.
"I'm stunned," says Vatanparast.
"At some point he just wanted to train his fists"
He remembers that Nuradi A. came to the first training session in 2015 without sports gear.
"He just didn't have any." The then 13-year-old hadn't been in Germany long, he had previously emigrated from Russia with his mother and two younger siblings.
“The family had big problems.
The daughter had leukemia, the mother raised the children alone, Nuradi took on a kind of father role there early on.« Vatanparast says that the young boxer was often tired, sometimes he had to throw up in training.
He tried very hard for Nuradi, says Vatanparast, and repeatedly offered him help.
"But at some point he only wanted to train his fists and no longer his head, and he increasingly neglected school."
In Vatanparast's project, boxing is the reward for continually improving school performance.
If you don't improve, you have to watch sports.
'Nuradi didn't have the strength to manage school, sports and family at the same time.
We then split up because I can only train boxers who treat themselves and the sport responsibly.«
In July 2018, Nuradi A. received a high school diploma.
In 2019 he attended vocational school and from August 2020 he went to evening school.
He broke off both after a short time, and he also lost a job as a warehouse worker because he was absent for several days without an excuse.
It seems as if his life no longer had a goal.
"I keep thinking about the dead boy"
On Sunday afternoon, Nuradi A's mother is sitting on a deep couch in a small apartment on the outskirts of downtown Münster.
She is crying, her hands are shaking.
'My son isn't a murderer.
How did all this happen?” she whispers.
Riuzana A. is 37 years old, she is dressed all in black.
You can see from her face that the past few years have sapped her strength.
“My daughter has leukemia, the cancer came back twice.
I lived with her in the hospital, Nuradi did everything at home, took care of his brother.
He was far too small for it, but we had no other options."
She gets up and opens the door to a tiny side room.
It's Nuradi A's room.
Boxing trophies stand on a cupboard, and several medals hang from the handles.
"That was his pride," says Riuzana A. There is no desk or bookcase in the room.
There are two narrow mattresses on the floor: »Nuradi slept here.
Sometimes I slept next to him, sometimes I took my mattress into the kitchen.« The family has little money, the mother and children finance everyday life with social benefits.
Riuzana A. sits back on the couch.
“I keep thinking about the dead boy, about his family.
I'm so sorry.
But I know my kid, he's not a killer.
And yet I know there is no excuse for what he is said to have done.”
The public prosecutor's office was already investigating Nuradi A.
She had noticed for some time that her son had changed: "He became quieter and quieter, hardly laughed at all, didn't tell us anything about his thoughts or wishes." Documents available to SPIEGEL prove that the public prosecutor's office had been dealing with A. for a long time.
A procedure from autumn last year for dangerous bodily harm was dropped after the injured party had not filed a criminal complaint.
In February of this year, he punched a man outside a pub.
A short time later, Nuradi A. receives mail from the office.
The public prosecutor's office is ready to drop proceedings against him, it says, "if appropriate educational assistance has been initiated."
In June, a contact point for delinquent young people and adolescents reported, and A. was also invited to the consultation hours of the social psychiatric service.
"He wanted to do therapy, wanted to improve, he kept telling me that," explains Riuzana A.
Instead, Nuradi A. seems to be conspicuous again.
It is not yet clear what exactly happened between him and Malte C., who was five years his senior, at the Pride event in the city centre.
The Münster police describe the course of events as follows: A. insulted several women with the words “lesbian whore” and “piss off”, he is said to have approached them “in a threatening manner”.
Malte C. is said to have asked the 20-year-old to refrain from insults.
After that, according to the police report, A. is said to have hit him twice in the face.
C. lost consciousness and fell on the asphalt with the back of his head.
Five days later, the police announced the young man's death.
When asked by SPIEGEL, Dirk Ollech, spokesman for the Münster public prosecutor's office, confirmed that A. had made criminal appearances "in the recent past".
There had been "several cases" of conviction for bodily harm.
So far, however, there have been no politically motivated acts.
»In this case, however, it stands to reason that the attack was anti-queer.
The insults speak volumes.
At the same time, a witness states that the suspect himself claimed to be homosexual at the event.« Whether A. was intoxicated during the act is currently the subject of the investigation.
»He was afraid for his future, the future of his family«
Riuzana A. can't believe it all.
»My son is tolerant, he has never had such problems before, he has never said anything against a homosexual person.
I wouldn't have tolerated that either, everyone should be and do what they want." Nuradi A. had had girlfriends in the past and was "popular" with women.
DER SPIEGEL was also able to speak to four of his closest friends, who suggest that the former boxer has had serious drug problems for some time.
“He was afraid for his future, the future of his family.
He then got in touch with the wrong people, consumed a lot of drugs, was always near the main train station," said a friend of the 20-year-old.
The place where he was arrested now.