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CDU politician Caffier
Photo: Sean Gallup / Getty Images
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania's Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig (SPD) has asked Interior Minister Lorenz Caffier (CDU) to clarify questions about his arms purchase.
"The Prime Minister has asked the Minister of the Interior to clarify all questions, to deal with the matter and to explain it in parliament and in public," said the State Chancellery.
Accordingly, Schwesig had a conversation with Caffier on Saturday.
The background to this is that the Minister of the Interior initially responded evasively to a question from a journalist as to whether he privately as a hunter had bought a gun from or through a former member of a right-wing extremist group, or had completed shooting training with him.
On Friday, Caffier had admitted the purchase.
"Yes, I have. A handgun. At the beginning of 2018, on the basis of the legal basis and at a time when the man was not yet under suspicion and was a reliable training partner for the police at home and abroad," said the CDU politician "Mirror".
No one suspected possible contacts between the man and right-wing extremists.
At the beginning of 2018, the authorities and Caffier had no suspicions about the company.
The man is still an officially licensed arms dealer.
He only uses the weapon for hunting, a handgun is part of the normal equipment there.
Caffier assured the Prime Minister of this justification in an interview, the State Chancellery said.
The advocacy of democracy and freedom and the fight against right-wing extremism are central concerns of the state government.
There should be no doubt about that.
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svv / dpa