Author: Toby Helm in
Berlin
Publication: Electronic
Telegraph
Date: November 25, 2000.
REVULSION at the crimes
of neo-Nazi racists gripped Germany yesterday after it emerged that two
young men and a woman had been arrested on suspicion of murdering a six-year-old
half-Iraqi boy in a swimming pool.
Chancellor Gerhard Schroder's
spokesman, Uwe-Karsten Heye, expressed the Government's "consternation"
after inquiries into the boy's death in 1997 were re-opened following new
evidence. The parents of Joseph Abdulla believe that their son was
drugged, tortured and then drowned in the open-air pool by a gang of up
to 50 youths.
Police previously stated
that Joseph died in an accident. However, his family have gathered
15 sworn statements from witnesses which they claim prove their claims
in court. Yesterday, as a sense of shock spread across the country,
the mass circulation Bild newspaper printed a front-page photograph of
Joseph.
It showed him lying dead
and being stroked by his German mother, Renate Kantelberg-Abdulla, shortly
after he was recovered from the swimming pool in the east German town of
Sebnitz. Next to the photograph, Bild published an appeal from Mrs
Kantelberg-Abdulla. She said: "Wherever neo-Nazis turn up, please,
please do not look away."
Most other German newspapers
placed the story on their front pages. A police investigation into
Joseph's death concluded in May 1998 that he died as a result of an accident.
Foul play was categorically ruled out. The boy's family, however,
were always convinced that he was murdered and undertook their own investigation
in the search for justice.
After gathering a mass
of evidence from witnesses and paying for a second autopsy on Joseph's
body, they believe that they have pieced together his final moments.
According to the witness accounts, the six-year-old boy was grabbed from
the side of the pool by a group of youths and forced to swallow a liquid,
which is now believed to have been Ritalin, a drug given to calm hyperactive
children.
He quickly became dazed
and was beaten. Again according to witnesses, members of the gang
then tortured him with an electric shock instrument. Amid chants
of "come on, throw him in", Joseph was then bundled into the pool.
Ten minutes later his body was dragged out, by which time he was dead.
The second autopsy revealed that there was bruising to Joseph's left ear.
This had not been found
during the first examination or taken into account during police investigations.
Traces of the drug Ritalin were also discovered in his body in the second
autopsy. According to the witness statements, around 200 people were
in or near the swimming pool on the warm day in June when Joseph died but
most were oblivious to what was happening in their midst.
The parents sent their
findings to a criminologist in Hanover who concluded in a report to prosecutors
that the case should be re-opened. This week, the public prosecutor
in Dresden announced the arrests of three young people - two male and one
female - and said a full case would be opened.
Sebnitz, a town of 10,000
people near the border with the Czech Republic, is known to be home to
many members of the National Democratic Party, the far-Right neo-Nazi organisation
that the German government has been trying to ban.
Yesterday it was reported
that Joseph's parents had received death threats since the arrests and
that neo-Nazis had turned up in front of their house this week and made
Nazi salutes. Earlier this month 200,000 Germans took part in a demonstration
in Berlin against neo-Nazism.
12 November 2000: German
government attacked over ban on neo-Nazi party
10 November 2000: 200,000
Germans join anti-Nazi march
26 September 2000: 60
hurt in raid on Nazi rally
23 September 2000: Haider
blames rise of neo-Nazis on German Chancellor
17 September 2000: Neo-Nazis
recruiting in east German jails
31 August 2000: German
trio jailed for brutal racist killing
