Chancellor Angela Merkel has apologized publicly to the relatives of 10 people, mostly immigrants, suspected of being killed by a neo-Nazi group whose actions German authorities failed to detect for more than a decade.
The group is suspected of killing eight people of Turkish origin and a Greek man between 2000 and 2006. Those killings went unsolved for years. The group is also believed to have killed a policewoman in 2007.
Merkel told a memorial today the killings were “a disgrace for our country.” She says some victims’ relatives were unjustly suspected in the murders, telling them: “I ask for forgiveness.” The neo-Nazi activities came to light in November when two suspected founders were found dead and a third suspected member turned herself in.
"Reports about unscrupulous far-right perpetrators sometimes shake us, and they dominate the headlines for a few days," Merkel said. "But often enough we perceive such incidents as a side issue _ we forget quickly, much too quickly."
Thursday's event, which was followed by a minute of silence across Germany, was initiated by former President Christian Wulff. Merkel stepped in after he resigned last week in a corruption scandal.
Semiya Simsek _ the daughter of the first victim, florist Enver Simsek, who was shot in Nuremberg in 2000 _ sharply criticized how authorities initially handled the killings, and said her mother had been suspected at one point.
"For 11 years, we couldn't even be victims with a clean conscience," she said.
"There was always this load on our lives that perhaps someone from our family could be responsible for the death of my father," she added. "And there was the other suspicion too: my father a criminal, a drug dealer?"
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