Additional Indictment Filed on Grounds of the Arson Attack Against an Refugee Accommodation Centre in Saarlouis on 19 September 1991

Year of issue 2023
Date 13.11.2023

On 6 November 2023, the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office filed charges against

German national Peter St.

before the State Security Chamber of the Koblenz Higher Regional Court.

There are sufficient grounds to suspect the accused of aiding and abetting murder as well as aiding and abetting attempted murder to the detriment of 20 people (sections 211, 212 para. 1, sections 22, 23 para. 1, section 27 para. 1 of the German Criminal Code).

In essence, the indictment sets out the following facts:

Peter St. has an ideology characterised by national socialist and racist convictions. In the night of 18 to 19 September 1991, he and other like-minded right-wing extremists – among them separately prosecuted Peter S. – went to a restaurant in Saarlouis. The group discussed the numerous racially-motivated crimes against refugee accommodation, which were especially prominent in East Germany at the time. Peter St., who was a key figure in the local skinhead community back then, made it clear that he approved of the perpetration of such attacks also in Saarlouis and uttered especially the following words in the presence of his subordinate Peter S.: ‘Something like this should also burn or happen here.’

Influenced and encouraged by this statement, separately prosecuted Peter S. made his way to the refugee accommodation centre on Saarlouiser Straße shortly afterwards, in the early hours of 19 September 1991. He entered the building, poured gasoline out of a plastic canister on the ground level and set it on fire. The fire spread rapidly through the entire staircase and engulfed a 27-year-old Ghanaian national in the hallway of the attic. He sustained serious burns and suffered from smoke poisoning to which he succumbed later that day. Another two residents were only able to save their lives by jumping out of the window, leaving them with fractured bones. The other 18 residents managed to get to safety unharmed.

On 21 July 2022, the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office had charged Peter S. with murder, attempted murder to the detriment of 20 people as well as fatal and attempted fatal arson (sections 211, 212 para. 1, sections 307 no. 1, 306 no. 2, sections 22, 23 para. 1 of the German Criminal Code) before the Koblenz Higher Regional Court (see Press Release No. 47 of 3 August 2022). On 9 October 2023, Peter S. was sentenced to a juvenile prison term of 6 years and 10 months. The verdict is not final yet.

On 6 June 2023, Peter St. was taken into custody and has been in pre-trial detention ever since (see Press Release No. 27 of 6 June 2023).