Icon: enlarge
Lorenz Caffier sits as a witness in the Bundestag committee of inquiry about the attack on Breitscheidplatz.
Photo: Christoph Soeder / dpa
The former interior minister of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Lorenz Caffier (CDU), claims to have learned of two problematic incidents in the constitutional protection department of his ministry only after years.
As a witness in the Bundestag's committee of inquiry into the terrorist attack on Berlin's Breitscheidtplatz, Caffier said on Thursday that he was "very annoyed" when State Secretary Thomas Lenz informed him about it in 2019.
Specifically, it is about the reference of an informant of the constitution protection of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania about possible contacts of the assassin Anis Amri in the Berlin clan milieu, which had not been forwarded to the responsible investigators in the authority, as well as about a bogus purchase of weapons.
A deactivated weapon and a shotgun had been kept for a long time in the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Schwerin.
Caffier said that he did not recall the head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Reinhard Müller, in spite of these mistakes, because he had done a good job for years and with him through several crises.
He added: "I may be interpreted as a mistake, but I stand by it."
The Tunisian Anis Amri carried out an attack on the Berlin Christmas market on Breitscheidplatz in 2016, killing a total of twelve people.
The authorities had already noticed the rejected asylum seeker as an Islamist threat.
After the attack, he fled to Italy, where he was shot by the police.
The committee of inquiry has the task of clearing up government errors related to the attack.
His interrogations had contributed to the expulsion of Müller.
The new Interior Minister of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Torsten Renz (CDU) had put Müller into temporary retirement on January 13th.
The FDP chairman in the committee, Benjamin Strasser, thinks that is not enough.
He said that Renz (CDU) had "checked off the case a little prematurely."
Icon: The mirror
svs / dpa