After incidents involving incendiary devices and explosives, the police in Cologne are searching again for unknown perpetrators. A similar series occurred two months ago. The investigations were criticised.
Following an explosion in a clothing chain shop in the German city Cologne on Wednesday morning, the police are searching for the suspected perpetrator. He is said to have smashed the entrance door, placed a shopping bag containing the incendiary device and fled. A passer-by tried in vain to extinguish the fire but, contrary to previous reports, was not injured.
Investigators say they are looking into links with an explosion on the Hohenzollernring in the city centre on Monday, in which doors and windows in the entrance area of a discotheque were badly damaged and a cleaner was slightly injured. The perpetrator is said to have placed a shopping bag containing accelerant in front of the club’s window pane and set it alight. The police have released images from the CCTV footage in the search for the unknown suspect. According to the tabloid “Bild”, the suspect has “similarities” to the one from Monday.
Also in Cologne, a BMW was on fire in the Ostheim neighbourhood on Wednesday night. Police found a live hand grenade under the vehicle, which had to be detonated on site. Investigators are assuming arson.
The police will provide more details on the offences at a press conference tomorrow, Thursday. Similar explosions and arsons have already occurred in the summer months in Cologne, Engelskirchen and Duisburg, in some cases causing considerable damage to property. In Solingen, a 17-year-old died while trying to detonate an explosive device in front of a shisha bar.
According to investigators, a conflict between rival drug cartels is behind this earlier series. It culminated in a brutal hostage-taking that was ended by the police. They suspect the perpetrators to be in the Netherlands and labelled them the “mocro mafia”, a derogatory term for people from Morocco.
This and the focus on perpetrators with Arab backgrounds have prompted criticism from several organisations, especially as far-right motives are not taken into consideration. This is also significant because one of the explosions took place in Cologne’s Keupstraße, which is characterised by migrants and where the right-wing “National Socialist Underground” detonated a nail bomb 20 years ago.
Also in Solingen, a family of four with a history of migration died in March after an arson attack on a residential building. As far as is known, the offence is not connected to the explosions in Cologne and the surrounding area. Two weeks later, the police arrested a former tenant of the house as a suspect.
Published in German in „nd“.
Image: The Keupstraße in Cologne where a device exploded in June (A.Savin, CC BY-SA 3.0).
