• Home /
• Statewatch Database /
• Policing - in brief (5)

Policing - in brief (5)

01 March 1994

Amnesty criticises Hamburg police: Amnesty International has published a 10 page report criticizing the Hamburg authorities for failing to prosecute or discipline police officers responsible for ill-treating detainees in their custody. The officers - members of the E- Schicht, a special police unit based at police station 16 in Hamburg - were the subject of 32 complaints of ill-treatment during the period 1989 to 1993. None of these complaints has resulted in officers being charged or disciplined, even though two of the victims, Lutz Priebe and Frank Fennel, were subsequently awarded compensation by a Hamburg court for the injuries they suffered at the hands of the E-Schicht. In August 1989 Lutz Priebe suffered a broken nose when an officer at station 16 deliberately struck his face against the edge of a table. The Hamburg Regional Court concluded that he had been the victim of deliberate ill-treatment. Frank Fennel was badly beaten by officers from the same station in July 1991. His injuries included concussion, multiple bruising and abrasions, and a bruised kidney, as a result of which he was in hospital for a week. The same court ruled that Fennel had been "badly and systematically beaten" by officers who had "taken the law into their own hands".

Amnesty International, March, 1994.