The Ahr flood disaster should not be dealt with in a criminal trial. The public prosecutor's office is closing investigations into possible errors in crisis management. Your reasoning is long.
Koblenz - Almost three years after the flood disaster in the Ahr Valley, the Koblenz public prosecutor's office has stopped investigating the deadly flood. There was no sufficient suspicion against the former Ahr district administrator Jürgen Pföhler (CDU) and an employee from the crisis team, said the head of the Koblenz public prosecutor's office, Mario Mannweiler, on Thursday. “As difficult as it is, we have to get rid of the idea that such extreme events always have to have someone criminally responsible. Some events just happen and cannot be controlled by a single person.”
136 people died in the flood disaster in Rhineland-Palatinate, including 135 in the Ahr region and one person in the Trier area. Thousands of houses were destroyed and roads and bridges were washed away. One person is also still missing.
The background to the investigation was allegations of inadequate crisis management and inadequate preparation for such a disaster. Among other things, it was investigated whether the Ahrweiler district, which is responsible for disaster control in the area and headed by Pföhler, may have warned too late about the flood disaster in July 2021 in the Ahr Valley. The public prosecutor's office investigated for more than two and a half years on suspicion of negligent homicide in 135 cases and negligent bodily harm in office through omission.
Pföhler had always rejected the allegations. His lawyer therefore called the public prosecutor's decision not surprising. “We pointed out from the beginning that Dr. Pföhler cannot be considered from any point of view. This assessment has been confirmed to be correct,” said lawyer Olaf Langhanki to the German Press Agency. “For us, the matter is closed.” The employee from the crisis team had also denied through his lawyer that he had committed a criminal offense.
After extensive investigations, the public prosecutor's office came to the conclusion that it was an extraordinary natural disaster, the extreme extent of which could not have been specifically predicted by those responsible in the Ahrweiler district. “The 2021 flood far exceeded anything people had experienced before and was subjectively unimaginable for residents, those affected, emergency services and those responsible for the operation,” the authority said.
It is true that disaster control in the Ahrweiler district was inadequately organized and the disaster control management system had a whole series of deficiencies. For example, there was no flood alarm plan and there was no systematic evacuation planning or risk analyses. “Responsibility for this lies primarily with the former district administrator, who has overall political and administrative responsibility.” However, from the perspective of the public prosecutor, these “quite considerable deficiencies” that an expert identified did not constitute criminal liability.
The disaster researcher commissioned by the public prosecutor's office stated in his report: "With a better system and a more optimal organization, more people could have been saved." However, it cannot be said with certainty in retrospect whether more people would actually have been saved. But there must be certainty for a criminal conviction, said senior public prosecutor Mannweiler.
The investigation was purely a criminal investigation. “The public prosecutor’s office does not have to decide whether someone has failed in character in this case,” said Mannweiler. It is also not the job of the public prosecutor to assess political responsibility or make a moral judgment. “Whether someone is steadfast in a crisis, maintains their composure, takes responsibility, is a strong leader, shows a willingness to make sacrifices, takes on a beacon function for their employees, that is a question of character and personality.”
Mannweiler presented the results of the meticulous investigation for around two hours. “The common thread that runs through this investigation is the retrospective recognition that certain things at a certain point in time would have made it more likely that more people would have been saved,” he said. The situation remained unclear until the end because the flood was so unimaginable. “We don’t know what would have happened if. We don't know what would have happened if. During the investigation we never achieved the certainty that is necessary on this point. I know it’s hard to understand because a lot of it seems so obvious at first.”
The senior public prosecutor said that discontinuing the investigation was not a discretionary matter. Flood victims or relatives of flood victims could lodge a complaint, which would then first have to be decided by the Koblenz Public Prosecutor's Office.
The investigation against Pföhler had already been initiated in August 2021. The then district administrator had not been on duty since August 2021 due to illness and was retired in October 2021 at his own request due to incapacity to work.
The investigations had dragged on for a long time, also because they had a previously unknown dimension. Extensive data was examined and more than 300 witnesses were interviewed, some of whom were severely traumatized, according to the Rhineland-Palatinate LKA boss Mario Germano. These were primarily employees of fire departments and municipalities or those affected by the flood. The majority of the interrogations were completed by spring 2022. The conclusion of the investigation had been postponed several times, among other things because the public prosecutor wanted to wait for the results of the investigative committee in the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament.
The current Ahr district administrator Cornelia Weigand sees moral responsibility in addition to the criminal issue. “In the event of a catastrophe of this magnitude, no one would have acted without errors. But I don’t think not acting at all is an option,” she explained. “I expect a district administrator to be on site in such a situation and to do what he can for the people.” dpa