The committee of inquiry into the right-wing extremist series of attacks in Berlin-Neukölln will start later than planned. The constituent meeting was moved from this Friday (June 3rd) to June 16th. This was announced by the committee chairman Florian Dörstelmann (SPD). The reason he gave on Tuesday was the unresolved question about AfD representatives in the committee. The RBB had previously reported.
The House of Representatives installed the committee on May 5th. In the election of the members and deputy members, the candidates of the AfD parliamentary group failed both the first and the second attempt.
Parliament will meet next on June 9th and could confirm the AfD personnel proposal – provided the parliamentary groups find a solution by then.
In other parliamentary groups there are fundamental concerns about the participation of the AfD in certain parliamentary bodies. The party – according to the accusation – has become radicalized in recent years and has moved more and more to the right.
The committee of inquiry is to deal with the series of right-wing extremist arson attacks, damage to property and threats in Neukölln and with errors in the investigation. The police assume at least 72 acts, mainly between 2016 and 2019 – including at least 14 arson attacks in which cars also went up in flames.
The victims were mostly people who campaigned against right-wing extremism – including today’s Left-wing MP Ferat Kocak, whose car was set on fire in February 2018 and who is now a member of the U-Committee. After long and initially unsuccessful investigations, charges were finally brought against two suspected neo-Nazis. A suspect was temporarily an AfD member.
According to the Berlin Investigative Committee Act, the parliamentary groups must be involved in a U-committee according to their number of members, with each parliamentary group having to be represented by at least one member. In the case of Neukölln, resistance to this came primarily from the FDP, which considers the committee to be superfluous anyway.
The AfD itself defends itself against the handling of it in connection with the committee and has appealed to the Berlin Constitutional Court. If Parliament itself does not find a solution, the constitutional judges would probably have the last word.
