Undercover officers attacked
01 May 2003
On 14 July, a Hamburg court sentenced three police officers to 12 months probation for beating up two plainclothes police officers at a demonstration in Hamburg in November last year.
The case highlights police violence by the Thuringian Beweissicherungs - und Festnahmeeinheit (Evidence and Arrest Unit, BFE). It also created some political embarrassment when police and politicians tried to interfere in the legal proceedings and the chief of police gave false testimony in court (preliminary proceedings have been initiated against him). The public prosecutor and presiding judge were unusually outspoken when they said that the officers had only faced legal proceedings because the victims in the case were police officers themselves.
The scandal is, however, part of wider developments in Hamburg where the Senate, under the control of the right-wing Schill Partei party, has clamped down on any political expressions contrary to its liking.
The demonstration in Hamburg in November last year was held to protest at the Hamburg Senate's decision to forcibly remove long-established Bauwagenplatz (left-wing alternative urban caravan sites). The police raid triggered large-scale demonstrations. Later that month the Hamburg police asked for help from their colleagues from the special Thuringian BFE unit.
The BFE, like all special police units, specialises in public order training and has special equipment (bullet-proof clothing, radio communication helmets, marshal arts batons, gas and rubber bullet guns and machine guns). It has a reputation for the aggressive policing of left-wing demonstrations and its corps d'esprit has made any identification and/or prosecution of illegal conduct impossible.
The first BFE unit was created in Hesse in 1985 and similar units were formed in other Länder over the years (Bavaria: USK, Lower Saxony: ZSK & ZSNK, Hamburg: E-Schicht, Berlin: EbLT). In 1995, the annual Interior Minister's Conference recommended the nationwide creation of special evidence gathering and arrest units. Between 1992 and 1997, the Erfurt (Thuringia) BFE was deployed 519 times within Thuringia and 11 times in other Länder, arresting or keeping in custody around 900 people. The protests at which the BFE units are deployed are those where authorities expect "high potential for disruption". These are commonly fascist rallies, anti-fascist protests and football matches, but also anti-road and anti-nuclear waste protests and blockades.
As the court case revealed, last November two undercover plainclothes police officers were observing the demonstration from a parking lot, dressed in "scene" clothing (black hooded tops). A drunken man threw a beer can towards the police officers. Although it did not hit anyone, BFE officers started attacking anyone in their path. Erkan D., one of the undercover officers, was targeted and even when he shouted the codeword "Mondlicht", they continued to beat him up. When his colleague, Dirk R., told another BFE officer "we are colleagues", they started beating him as well. Both officers sustained injuries and were hospitalised, leaving them unfit for work for a week.
Thomas Semprich, the presiding judge, obviously did not believe the statements of the officers on trial and in a telephone conversation with a defence lawyer, said that if the defence team chose a different "defence strategy" their clients would be able to remain within the police force (taz Hamburg, 4.7.2003), ie: that an admission would lead to a sentence below 12 months: if a police officer receives a sentence of 12 months or more, they have to leave the police force. This curious violation of the independence of the judiciary remained uncommented in the press, but it became clear that it was not the defence team of the accused who chose their defence strategy anyway, but the chief of police of Erfurt, who told the accused that if they admitted to the charges, they would lose their jobs.
Richter sent the<