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Germany starts mammoth trial over refugee centre abuses
SIEGEN, Germany, Nov 8, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Germany launched a mass trial
Thursday of 30 defendants accused of brutally abusing asylum seekers in a
refugee home in scenes that drew comparisons to the US prison camp in
Guantanamo Bay.
The mammoth trial is being held in a congress centre in Siegen, North
Rhine-Westphalia state, near the refugee centre in the town of Burbach that
was rocked by the abuse scandal four years ago.
The accused, among them centre managers, social workers and private
security guards, face charges including false imprisonment, assault and
theft.
Staff allegedly beat, tormented and humiliated asylum seekers or locked
them up for days at a time in the facility that housed some 700 people
seeking safe haven in Germany.
Police launched an investigation after journalists handed them cellphone
video footage of security guards forcing an elderly man to lie on a vomit-
covered mattress and threatening to beat him.
Other disturbing images that were released and sparked public outrage in
September 2014 showed a guard pinning a handcuffed Algerian man to the floor
with his boot on the man’s neck.
“These are images of the kind we’ve seen from Guantanamo Bay,” Frank
Richter, police chief of the nearby city of Hagen, said at the time,
referring to the US military detention facility in Cuba.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman condemned the “repulsive acts” that
had taken place at the centre located about 100 kilometres (60 miles)
southeast of Cologne.
Refugee rights group Pro Asyl said the brutal attacks were signs of
“appalling racism” of unqualified private security guards who were being
hired amid a strong migrant and refugee influx.
Germany was already the top EU destination for asylum seekers from war-
torn Syria, Iraq and other countries at the time, a year before arrivals
skyrocketed to many thousands a day in mid-2015.
BSS/AFP/BZC/1820HRS