Germany: Amnesty International criticises police brutality
01 January 2005
In 16 November 2004, a 30-year-old was arrested by police in Bonn for drunken behaviour and taken to the police station where he was restrained and consequently fell into a coma, from which he is not expected to recover. A video of the incident led the public prosecutor to initiate a preliminary investigation on grounds of "physical assault in office". A medical report, published in January this year and partially disclosed to the German broadcasting company
WDR, found the police doctor seriously negligent. Four officers had shackled the drunken man at hands and feet, and turned him onto his stomach and one officer knelt on him in order to take a blood sample. After 30 minutes prostrate on the ground, the doctor said he should be taken to hospital as he had suffered heart failure and stopped breathing, according to the WDR. The preliminary investigation has closed but public prosecution spokesman, Fred Apostel, commented that "the admission of those accused is still lacking", on the basis of which the prosecution will decide to press charges or stop proceedings.
The last time occasion police restraint on arrest led to a death was in May 2002, when Stephan Neisius died after having been repeatedly kicked and hit by a group of police officers as he lay handcuffed on the floor of a Cologne police station (
Statewatch Vol. 12 no 3 & 4). A forensic examination, however, concluded that his death did not result from the beating. Charges of bodily harm resulting in death were filed against six police officers, who came to trial in late June 2003, but although Cologne District Court convicted all of them for bodily harm resulting in death on 25 July 2003, none of the accused were sentenced to periods of imprisonment. Less than two months after Stephan Neisius's death, 30-year-old René Bastubbe was shot dead by police in controversial circumstances in the town of Nordhausen in the state of Thuringia. One police officer, who was charged with René Bastubbe's negligent homicide, was brought to trial in late September 2003 but he was acquitted of the charge in November 2003 (Amnesty International, January 2004).
The failure to prosecute confirms criticism levelled at German authorities by Amnesty International, which published a special report on police brutality in January 2004, finding a systematic failure by German authorities to investigate and bring to justice officers responsible for violence and ill-treatment (see
Statewatch Bulletin vol 14 no 1). This institutional neglect is summarised as:
unreasonably protracted length of criminal investigations into allegations of police ill-treatment, the reluctance of some prosecuting authorities to forward cases to the courts, the high incidence of counter-charges brought by police against those who complain, and sentences which in some cases do not appear to match the gravity of the crime.
The "persistent pattern of alleged ill-treatment and excessive use of force by police officers in Germany", Amnesty found, is particularly directed against foreigners, but increasingly against Germans as well. In January this year, the organisation reviewed its one year long campaign and criticised the German government for failing to implement its recommendations, namely, to set up an independent police complaint's commission, to properly investigate alleged police misconduct and to set up a system to maintain and publish uniform and comprehensive statistics that would enable a systematic analysis and proof of institutional failure. With police statistics currently collated by the individual
Länder (regional states) under varying categories, comprehensive analysis is impossible (see Statewatch vol 11 no 2). Amnesty's demands are also shared and have been put forward to the German government by the UN Human Rights Committee, which monitors the implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Committee against Torture. The a