From BZ/dpa
After a much-criticised police operation on a Syrian family in Berlin, their lawyers are demanding the immediate suspension of one of the officers involved.
The police officer “not only physically injured their clients, but also racially degraded, insulted and threatened them,” the lawyers said in a statement on Tuesday. According to their own statements, they have filed a complaint for “all possible criminal offences”, in particular for insults, threats, false suspicions and bodily harm in office.
The disciplinary offenses are serious, as a published video shows. The lawyers Onur Özata and Lukas Theune explained that the man could be suspended before the investigation was completed.
The wife and a son filmed part of the police operation. According to the police, the largely secretly recorded material had triggered suspicions of “xenophobic insults”.
According to the authority, the official was transferred to the office. A police spokesman said on Tuesday that no information could be given about further legal consequences. He referred to the ongoing investigations, in which the incident, including the specific actions of all those involved, is to be clarified. The criminal and disciplinary consequences depended on the results.
The video shows how two police officers want to arrest the man in the presence of his family because of an unpaid fine after multiple fare evasion. A fight ensues, everyone yells at each other, a child cries loudly, the police officers tie up the man. The woman says this is her apartment.
A policeman replies: “This is my country and you are a guest here.” And shortly afterwards: “Shut up, don’t touch me again. (…) I’ll take you to jail.”
Ultimately, the husband paid the fine of 750 euros in cash and was able to stay in the apartment.