NSU inquiry head to quit

Binninger's curt announcement carried by two Stuttgart newspapers Friday said he and his wife, Ulrike, a town mayor, had both decided not to seek candidacies in 2017 "because we want to add other facets to our lives." It was a "private" decision, he added.

Binninger, a high-ranking police commissioner in Germany's southern state of Baden-Wurttemberg until his election in 2002, heads parliament's second of two committees of inquiry into the so-called NSU murders.

The "National Socialist Underground" (NSU) murdered 10 people, mostly shopkeepers of Turkish, Kurdish and Greek origin across Germany between 2000 and 2007. The tenth victim was a policewoman. Not until 2011 did the public learn that the spree had long gone undetected.

Specialist on counter-terrorism, cyber-security

Binninger also chairs the Bundestag's Parliamentary Control Panel (PKGr) that oversees Germany's federal intelligence agencies. The Christian Democrat (CDU) had also been critical of Merkel's liberal policy on refugees.

Last week, Binninger publicly speculated that the NSU neo-Nazi cell at the center of his committee's inquiry and a three-year Munich trial involved more than three persons.

On trial is the supposedly sole surviving main perpetrator, Beate Zschäpe. Her alleged accomplices Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt apparently killed themselves after a botched robbery in 2011.

'Other accomplices'

Binninger last week told German ARD public television and the "Frankfurter Rundschau" newspaper that he was "deeply convinced" that other accomplices must have been present during the NSU murders and robberies.

He contradicted the view held by federal prosecutors "that all 27 crimes - ten murders, two attacks with explosives, 15 bank robberies - had only been carried out by the two men."

Binninger said there was a series of indicators that there must have been accomplices at the crime scenes who had helped or who had spied on targets, adding that police became prematurely fixated on the idea of three perpetrators.

DNA discrepancies

Still on Binninger's home page on Friday was testimony from a DNA analyst who told the federal inquiry committee that it was unusual that Mundlos' and Böhnhardt's fingerprints and DNA were not found at any of the crime scenes.

Binninger said "there is a row of crime scenes at which anonymous DNA was found. If this doesn't involved DNA from crime scene officials, then there are very strong indications that further persons must have been involved."

He suggested that authorities should gather more DNA samples from other potential suspects "or at least ask whether they will do this voluntarily."

Intimidation of parliamentarians

Binninger's terse exit announcement follows alarm expressed by members of Thuringia state's own regional parliamentary inquiry into the NSU about their personal safety, and suspected links between neo-Nazis and organized crime, especially the question of how the NSU obtained weapons.

Greens and Left party members Katharina König and Madeleine Henfling told the German DPA news agency that inquiry members and their staff needed police assistance to ensure their safety, and that witness testimony continued to be given at hearings in public.

"If we divert from this route then the neo-Nazis and the organized criminals will have achieved what they wanted," said König

"This is not everyday, what we are doing," said Henfling, adding that organized criminals were determined to maintain their anonymity.

Targets of hostility

Last week, Bundestag speaker Norbert Lammert, writing in the "Frankfurter Allgemeine" newspaper, said politicians and journalists had increasingly become targets of hostility, including threats of violence via social media.

The prosecution clearance rate was shockingly low, Lammert said, adding that Germany's BKA federal investigative police agency received a new case each day.

'Wave of hate'

The chief executive of Germany's federated municipalities and towns, Gerd Landsberg, told public Deutschlandradio last week that the BKA had recorded 115 such cases in the first quarter of 2017.

The wave of hate directed against communal politicians included intimidation, racist incitement and property damage.

"A state must, especially in such situations, set limits and I think were are doing too little," Landsberg said.

ipj/kl (KNA, dradio, AFP, ARD, dpa)