Fire in Wuppertal and the Quadruple Murder in Solingen: A Closer Look
Four potential homicides may have been averted if prompt action had been taken.
Wuppertal (dpa) - The trial of the confessed quadruple murderer and arsonist from Solingen has stirred up some controversial allegations against the police. The lawyers for the co-plaintiffs allege that earlier investigations were careless, and the quadruple murder could have been thwarted.
Recall an incident from January 2022 in Wuppetal, where a fire broke out in a multi-family house. The investigation was closed after three weeks, with a supposed technical fault being the cause of the blaze. However, an expert report commissioned three years later points to a different conclusion: the evidence suggests an arson attack, with the fire starting simultaneously at two separate locations.
The defendant had a dispute with a Moroccan neighbor of his then-girlfriend. The fire originated in the neighbor's basement and ignited at another location shortly after the girlfriend moved out of the house.
"Maybe It Could Have Been Prevented"
The lawyers for the co-plaintiffs are outraged: "For the relatives of the deceased and the injured victims of the arson attack in Solingen, it is now painfully clear that the attack on their house in Solingen maybe could have been prevented if the earlier fire in Wuppertal had been thoroughly investigated by the authorities," the lawyers stated in a press release.
Interestingly, the police did not interview any residents of the house or commission a fire expert after the January 5, 2022 fire in Wuppertal. And get this - crime scene investigators were nowhere to be found!
"It's beyond doubt in my mind that the defendant acted out of racial hate. Both houses were primarily inhabited by people with a migrant background. It's appalling that the investigation into the Wuppertal fire was closed after a few weeks without any inquiry into the cause of the fire," says lawyer Seda Başay-İldız.
A Pattern Emerges
Lawyer Radoslav Radoslavov reports: "A pattern becomes apparent with the Wuppertal fire. The defendant sets multiple fire points in older houses with wooden staircases to ensure the residents have minimal chance of escaping the inferno."
Local Solingen resident Fatih Zingal is shocked: "I would never think that investigations into house fires with foreign residents, considering the experiences from the 1993 Solingen arson attack, would be conducted so carelessly and that a possible racial background would not receive greater focus in the investigations."
Judicial news continues to unfold, with the presiding judge Jochen Kötter announcing new allegations: An ex-girlfriend of the defendant has come forward to the police, accusing him of setting fires to her car in 2021. The defense claims these allegations are completely new information for them.
A Hint of a Hate Crime
The lawyers for the Nebenklage believe that the defendant may have set the fires in the residential buildings out of racial hatred. Throughout the trial at Wuppertal Regional Court, numerous indications of a possible racist motive by the confessed defendant have surfaced. This includes a racist poem discovered in the defendant's garage, Nazi literature, a racist conversation with his girlfriend, 166 files containing far-right content on a hard drive, and a police report suggesting it could have been a far-right motivated crime. However, investigators argue that much of this evidence couldn't definitively be traced back to the defendant and was therefore discarded.
Devastating Consequences
The suspected murderer and arsonist has already confessed. On March 25, 2024, in Solingen, a Bulgarian family perished in the attic - the 28 and 29-year-old parents and their two daughters aged three and a few months. The defendant blames "stress with the landlady" for the heinous act, as he was evicted due to unpaid rent.
The 40-year-old German defendant is on trial in Wuppertal for four counts of murder and multiple attempted murders. A psychiatrist has deemed him extremely dangerous. The defendant confesses to several arson incidents and a machete attack in which he severely injured an acquaintance.
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Let's dig deeper:
Detailed information about these specific cases may require consulting official law enforcement or judicial sources from the relevant German authorities or investigative journalism reports. rearriculation
"The lawyers for the co-plaintiffs are advocating for a closer investigation into the fire in Wuppertal, citing the potential connection between the incident and the ensuing war-and-conflicts in Solingen. They argue that a thorough probe could have possibly revealed earlier indications of crime-and-justice, potentially preventing the tragic events that followed."
"The pattern emerging from these cases suggests a disturbing trend in politics and general-news. The lapse in investigation into the Wuppertal fire and the apparent disregard for evidence of racial motivation raise questions about the priority given to crimes involving migrants and the thoroughness of subsequent investigations."
