Turks urge independent commission to probe NSU murders

Germany's Turkish community is demanding an independent commission to investigate the murders of nine immigrants and a policewoman by neo-Nazis between 2000 and 2007.

Ilker Duyan, an expert on the far right of the Turkish immigrant organization TBB, slammed German authorities for failing to shed light on the killings by the neo-Nazi group National Socialist Underground (NSU), despite repeated promises by politicians, since the case broke six years ago.

"The Turkish Union in Berlin-Brandenburg [TBB] is demanding an independent commission to investigate the NSU murders," Duyan told Anadolu Agency.

"An independent commission made up of experts, academics, retired judges, former police officers, and NGO representatives would enable a deeper investigation into the NSU's links to other far-right groups and possible extremist networks within state institutions," he said.

The NSU killed eight Turkish immigrants, a Greek citizen, and a German policewoman between 2000 and 2007, all apparently without arousing the suspicions of the German police or its intelligence services.

The German public first learned about the existence of NSU on Nov. 4, 2011, when two members of the group reportedly died in a murder-suicide following an unsuccessful bank robbery.

Until 2011, Germany's police and intelligence service ruled out any far-right motive for the murders and instead treated immigrant families as suspects.

- 'NSU MUST HAVE HAD WIDER SUPPORT'
Duyan said the Turkish community has serious doubts about the official investigations carried out to date, which concluded that only three far-right extremists made up the entire NSU.

"I think the NSU wasn't an isolated group of three people, it was supported by a wider network," he said.

Pointing to the group's involvement in murders, bomb attacks, and bank robberies in various cities across Germany, he argued this would not have been possible without support from a larger network.

Federal prosecutors so far claimed the NSU consisted of only three right-wing extremists -- Uwe Mundlos, Uwe Bohnhardt and Beate Zschaepe -- who lived underground with fake identities starting in 1998.

Prosectors are seeking a life sentence for Zschaepe, who has denied any role in the killings and tried to lay the blame on her two male accomplices.

Duyan, who closely followed the NSU case and the subsequent parliamentary investigations, complained that the police and intelligence organizations had not helped solve the murders, but on the contrary blocked efforts to shed light on the shadowy NSU.

"So far six witnesses have been found dead. It was claimed that several of them committed suicide, and others died due to health problems," he said.

"But many people suspect that they might have been killed, maybe by a clandestine organization or a group of people," he added.

Duyan also criticized state institutions for undermining a full investigation by destroying secret files on the NSU or sealing them by secrecy orders that would last 120 years.

Officials insisted they had no prior knowledge of the existence of the NSU terror cell and its role behind the killings.