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Online seit:	Fri Sep  4 00:28:13 1998

Anwaltsbüro

Gabriele Heinecke • Martin Klingner • Karen Mücher • Sigrid Töpfer • Ulrich Wittmann

Budapester Straße 49 20359 Hamburg Telefon 040/ 439 60 01 Telefax 040/ 439 31 83 Gerichtskasten 510 Hamburg, den 02.06.1996

Fire-attack Lübeck 18.01.1996

Safwan Eid - further complaint of the defence

press release

The defence of the Lebanese citizen Safwan Eid has attacked last week the warrant and the subsequent confirming decision of the court order of the county court Lübeck with a further complaint. With reference to the fact that the public prosecution now follows the defence in the assumption that the accused is only 20 years old it has again been applied for referral of the proceedings to the competent juvenile court and to carry out a review of remand in custody.

1. The defence ascertains in the written complaint that Safwan Eid does not have “perpetrator's knowledge”, and that the courts must have assumed so in obvious ignorance of the statement of the ambulance man. This is precisely the case if the public prosecution's theories on the outbreak of the fire are being taken seriously. The way to this assumption was as follows:

During the press conference on the 20.01.1996 about the imprisonment of the Lebanese citizen the public prosecutor Klaus-Dieter Schulz asserted: “Decisive was rather the fact that the accused has given knowledge which only the perpetrator or somebody involved in the action could possess. He has exactly named the location of the outbreak of the fire which at the time was not known to the authorities that carry out the preliminary proceedings and which until yesterday was not known to us.” As is known the public prosecution localizes the place of the outbreak of the fire in the flat on the first floor of the house in the Hafenstraße 52 facing the Hafenstraße.

The assertion made by public prosecutor Schulz was wrong. Meanwhile the public prosecution has explained that it has never asserted that Safwan Eid had said that he had set fire to the first floor in front of the ambulance man who incriminates him.

The alleged confession, as asserted by the ambulance man, said that petrol had been poured against a door which had then been inflamed and run down the stairs burning. This statement is compatible with any door on any floor or even with the main entrance door, to which leads at least one flight of stairs, only the public prosecution has ascertained that the alleged site of the outbreak of the fire was not at a door and lay ca. 12 m away from the stairs of the house which are 13 cm higher.

Although it was obvious from the files right from the beginning that Safwan Eid did not possess perpetrator's knowledge the assertion that he was under strong suspicion was maintained during the review of remand in custody held on the 20.03.1996. That this statement was still based on the incorrect information given by the public prosecution was confirmed with the decision by the county court Lübeck from the 10.04.1996 not to remedy the complaint: here the judge asserted explicitly and factually wrong that the accused had explained in front of the ambulance man that the fire had broken out on the first floor of the house. Although the public prosecution, after the objections made by the defence in its complaint from the 21.04.1996, also explained that this had never been asserted by her the county court Lübeck surprisingly dismissed the complaint due to the supposedly accurate reasons of the warrant and the decision not to remedy the complaint from the 10.04.1996.

2. With reference to a window in the wooden porch of the burnt house that does not have a locking device and can be opened easily at any time the defence further points out that the argument of the public prosecution that the fire must have been laid by an inhabitant of the house cannot be upheld.

3. The complaint accuses the public prosecution of not having taken any further measures to clarify the misterious death of the inhabitant Sylvio A. in the wooden porch, who was living on the first floor, and presents an investigation by the expert witness Prof Dr. W. Bonte, director of the Forensic Institute of the Heinrich-Heine University in Düsseldorf. In it he bears out that from a forensic point of view no proof can be given that Sylvio A. was killed by the fire and in this context he puts forward the question for proceedings for a source of the fire on the ground floor.