German police raided over 20 homes and offices of suspected neo-Nazis and made three arrests Wednesday in the government’s crackdown on ultra-right-wing racist groups, Deutsche Welle reported. According to a government spokesman, the raids across northwestern Germany focused on an allegedly neo-Nazi group prosecutors said was trying to build a criminal network and was suspected of “significant” violent crimes, as well as an anti-Islam party running candidates in upcoming state elections.
The raids come on the heels of a report in German news magazine Der Spiegel that renewed criticism of German police for their investigation of the serial murders of perceived ethnic Turks. The neo-Nazi suspects in those murders were apprehended just last year by accident, but according to Spiegel, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation had told German police back in 2007 that racist motives were probably behind the killings.
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
