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Reinhard Müller: "A piece from the madhouse"
Photo: Bernd Wüstneck / dpa
After the sudden departure of its long-term minister Lorenz Caffier, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania's inner resort may soon be in trouble.
The head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Reinhard Müller, so enraged the members of the Bundestag's committee of inquiry into the terrorist attack on Berlin's Breitscheidplatz on Friday night that they were considering imposing a fine.
They all accuse Müller of not fully answering their questions about a note that was suppressed in his authority in 2017.
The hint had come from an informant for the constitutional protection of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
He allegedly overheard in Berlin in February 2017 that the later Christmas market bomber Anis Amri is said to have received support from a Berlin family with Arab roots who are considered to be part of the criminal milieu in the preparation of the attack and his subsequent escape from Berlin.
That didn't seem absurd to an employee of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, but he fell on deaf ears with his direct superior.
According to previous knowledge, the information was not passed on to the investigators who were involved in the attack on Breitscheidplatz.
Amri shot a truck driver in Berlin on December 19, 2016.
The Tunisian Islamist then raced with the truck across the Christmas market at the Memorial Church, where he killed eleven other people.
Müller explained in the committee that the information was "inconclusive" and that the information "did not match the actual course of events".
But whoever decided at the time not to pass on the information did not say it.
"Müller has illegally denied admissible questions from the members of the committee," said the chairwoman of the left-wing parliamentary group, Martina Renner.
The committee therefore plans to impose a fine.
The committee also decided that Müller must appear again as a witness.
Interior Secretary Thomas Lenz and Ex-Minister Lorenz Caffier are also to be interviewed from Schwerin.
The incident came to light because the employee who took the advice seriously at the time had finally informed the federal authorities about it himself in 2019.
Müller said on Friday that he would like to explain everything in detail, but only in a closed session, as otherwise there would be a risk to sources used to combat Islamism.
The Ministry of the Interior in Schwerin announced that State Secretary Lenz wanted to make a statement in a public meeting "in which he will explain the processes and assessments".
The FDP chairman in the investigative committee, Benjamin Strasser, commented on this statement with the words: "This is a piece of madness and shows how leaderless the Ministry of the Interior in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is." He accused Müller of "untruths with a bottomless cheek." " to spread.
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