By IMRE KARACS Herald correspondent
BERLIN - In a rare display of solidarity with victims of neo-Nazi violence, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has received the mother of a half-Arab boy believed to have been murdered by skinheads in the east German town of Sebnitz.
The death of 6-year-old Joseph Kantelberg-Abdulla, killed three years ago allegedly in the presence of 200 townsfolk, has provoked outrage throughout Germany.
Joseph's mother, Renate, says the boy was beaten, tortured and thrown into the local outdoor swimming pool by about 50 youths, who then trampled on him until he was dead.
The police in Sebnitz declared that Joseph had drowned by accident. They reopened the case last week in the face of new evidence gathered by Joseph's mother.
They then arrested three people on suspicion of murder, but in a new twist all three suspects were released, saying a key witness presented by the mother had contradicted himself.
Furthermore, the witness had been paid by the parents, the prosecution alleged. The sum involved was said to have ranged between about $10 and $50.
The story of Joseph has thus turned full circle, as accusing fingers are again being pointed at the family of the victim. They are openly loathed by most of the town. The mother, an assertive Social Democrat councillor originally from western Germany, is possibly more disliked than her Iraqi husband.
The couple run a pharmacy, which they say endangered the rackets run by their competitors and local doctors. It is beyond doubt that few of the townspeople would want to speak up on their behalf.
But it is also evident that the authorities in Sebnitz and the regional capital Dresden were keen not to add to statistics on neo-Nazi crime. Last week officials in Dresden conceded that the original investigation had been negligent. Witnesses had not been questioned, the autopsy had been flawed. No evidence of far-right involvement had been found.
Kantelberg-Abdulla has spent the past three years gathering 15 testimonies, which were then passed on to a noted criminologist in Hanover.
It was upon the criminologist's insistence that prosecutors in Dresden were forced to reopen the case last week.
The witnesses describe Joseph being taunted, beaten, forced to drink some kind of potion, tortured with electric shocks, and then murdered in the pool. About 200 people were present, but did not intervene. Joseph's sister Diana, then aged 12, cried for help but was ignored.
"I think the mother has the right to be heard," Schroeder said as he met her in Berlin. His personal involvement signals a hardening of attitude in the Government towards neo-Nazis, but is also certain to provoke further polarisation of German society.
Schroeder concern highlights neo-Nazis
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