Trial of deadly fire in the asylum seekers' home in Saarlouis: witness charged the accused

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More than 30 years after the alleged assassination attempt: trial in Koblenz

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Thomas Frey / dpa

In the trial of a fatal arson attack on a home for asylum seekers in Saarlouis in 1991, the main witness heavily incriminated the accused.

The 51-year-old told her in 2007 at a barbecue with a view to this crime: "It was me and they never caught me." The accused was not drunk, the witness of the same age added on Tuesday before the Koblenz Higher Regional Court (OLG).

She didn't know at the festival that there had also been a death in the 1991 attack.

She only read that on the Internet in 2019 and then filed a complaint.

In her own words, the witness remembered him as "inconspicuous" with no aggressive demeanor and no extremist statements.

At first it seemed absurd to her why he should make a real confession to a woman he didn't know.

Maybe he thought "he can pull something on me" - she doesn't know.

The accused again denied the allegations on Tuesday.

At the barbecue in 2007, he said to the witness about the arson attack: "It wasn't me." She may not have heard this "net" spoken in Saarland dialect.

When the presiding judge Konrad Leitges quoted the accused from an earlier interrogation, according to which the witness had destroyed his life, the 51-year-old reiterated this: "Of course"!

The man has been standing before a state security senate of the Koblenz Higher Regional Court since November 2022 for one case of murder and 20 cases of attempted murder.

In the arson attack in Saarland more than three decades ago, 27-year-old asylum seeker Samuel Yeboah from West African Ghana died after severe burns.

Two other residents jumped out of a window in the refugee shelter and broke bones.

18 other residents escape unharmed.

The federal prosecutor accuses the defendant of having set the fire out of racist sentiment.

sol/dpa