Criticism of Hamburg's Senator for Justice is getting louder

Days after the deadly knife attack on a regional train in Brokstedt, Schleswig-Holstein, the authorities are increasingly focusing on how the authorities are dealing with the alleged perpetrator. The resocialization expert Bernd Maelicke accuses the Hamburg Senator for Justice Anna Gallina (Greens) in the "Hamburger Abendblatt" of having ignored the Hamburg law on resocialization and victim protection (ResOG) passed in 2019.

The law aims to prevent ex-convicts from "falling down a release hole" when the prison gates open. Gallina obviously doesn't know it, in any case it couldn't have been applied, said the lawyer Maelicke, who initiated several state rehabilitation laws, the newspaper. "As a senator, she bears responsibility."

A spokesman for Gallina's authority, on the other hand, said: "The requirements of the law on the integration plan and also on the integrated transition management only apply to criminal detention, not to pre-trial detention." Release management can only be targeted. Due to the uncertain prospects of release, "a transition management structured in terms of time and content cannot be implemented" for prisoners in remand. "The integration planning takes place after the pre-trial detention, when it is clear how long the sentence will be."

In the act on the regional train from Kiel to Hamburg, two people died and five were seriously injured. An arrest warrant was issued against Ibrahim A. for two counts of murder and four counts of attempted manslaughter. Only a few days before the bloody crime on the regional train, A., a 33-year-old stateless Palestinian, was released from custody in Hamburg.

For the Hamburg CDU parliamentary group leader Dennis Thering, the case shows once again that the Hamburg judiciary is completely overwhelmed and Gallina is not up to the task. "Once again, she dives in instead of giving answers and solving problems," criticizes Thering in the Hamburger Abendblatt. He expects the first answers on Thursday in the Judiciary Committee of the Hamburg Parliament. The senator had announced that she would report there on the Hamburg aspects of the crime.

The chairman of the working group on migration law in the German Lawyers' Association (DAV), Thomas Oberhäuser, denied the question of whether the judiciary and administration could have prevented the crime on Deutschlandfunk on Saturday. He referred to legal considerations and requirements in pre-trial detention cases. At best, the judiciary and administration could have prevented the crime by continuing to hold him in custody, according to Oberhäuser. "But the judiciary decided that that would have been disproportionate to the crime he was accused of."

The motive of the suspect is still unclear. According to his lawyer, Ibrahim A. made no statements on the matter at the judge's appointment. Once the results of the investigation are available, he will speak to his client, said lawyer Björn Seelbach.

Social landlords in northern Germany have asked politicians for more support in integrating refugees. The companies organized in the Association of North German Housing Companies (VNW) experienced "poverty, exclusion and a lack of social prospects in parts of their quarters," said VNW director Andreas Breitner on Sunday in Hamburg. Parallel societies have emerged in recent years. In addition, as a result of immigration, "increasingly different cultures are clashing in our residential areas, which leads to conflicts". The social landlords are too often left alone with these problems.

In view of the violent riots on New Year's Eve in Berlin, the knife attack on the train near Brokstedt (Schleswig-Holstein) and the protests against a planned refugee camp in Upahl near Grevesmühlen (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania), the responsible politicians should seriously tackle the underlying social problems, demanded Breitner. “All the perpetrators who use violence, regardless of the motive, live in Germany, in communities or cities, have neighbors and live among us. Concern and empathy are extremely important in such situations: But what happens next?” Reflexively demanding that the state have to show more “hard edge” is not enough.