Remembering the victims

Germany is to hold a memorial service for the victims of a series of murders committed by a neo-Nazi organization, parliament leader Norbert Lammert announced on Sunday.

Members of the Bundestag, the lower house of German parliament, held talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel and German President Christian Wulff, Lammert said, to discuss the most fitting way to remember the victims killed between 2000 and 2007.

"We are all agreed that there should be an event," he the German daily Tagesspiegel. "How such a commemoration should take place depends on the views and expectations of the victims' families."

Recent revelations linked the group of far-right extremists calling themselves the National Social Underground (NSU) to the murders of eight ethnic Turks, one ethnic Greek and a German policewoman. Two people have been arrested in connection with the murders and two alleged accomplices were found dead on November 4 after reportedly committing suicide.

Police have since reopened a number of unsolved cases not originally thought to have been linked to far-right extremists including a nail bomb attack in a Cologne immigrant neighborhood in 2004.

Support for victims' loved ones

Germany's Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger pledged on Sunday to offer compensation to the victims' relatives.

"Even if financial help cannot undo the suffering, I will attempt to give the victims' families a sign of our solidarity with compensation from my budget," she told the German weekly Welt am Sonntag. "I fear that at the end of the investigation, we will uncover more victims of xenophobia than we are aware of today."

The chairman of the Intelligence Control Commission in the Bundestag, Thomas Oppermann, also underlined Germany's responsibility to help those behind by the murders. "The relatives of the victims of one of the most serious crimes to have taken place in Germany are entitled to support and compensation," he told Germany's Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

Support network

Adding to speculation that the three-person group allegedly behind the murders had a much wider support network, Oppermann went on to suggest that more arrests were possible.

"Without helpers the terror trio would not have been able to remain underground for 13 years," he said.

German security services have come under fire for failing to detect the NSU and Merkel has called for a full investigation into possible errors made by German authorities. The Bundestag is expected to discuss the issue on Tuesday.

Author: Charlotte Chelsom-Pill (AFP, dadp, epd)

Editor: Sean Sinico