Inquiry sees intelligence chief retire

Published on 03/07/2012 00:00

The head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency is stepping down amid criticism over investigations into a far-right group suspected to have killed ten people over several years.

Heinz Fromm, 63, will go into retirement at his own request at the end of this month after leading the agency since 2000, the interior minister said yesterday.

The move came a week after the agency admitted that files related to the investigation of the group had been destroyed.

The neo-Nazi National Socialist Underground evaded authorities’ detection for more than a decade until late last year. The group is suspected of killing eight people of Turkish origin and a Greek man between 2000 and 2006, plus a policewoman in 2007, and carrying out numerous bank robberies.

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, has taken part of the blame for failing to detect the group and for poor co-ordination between various authorities involved.

German centre-left opposition leader Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in a separate statement that in retiring, Fromm “has accepted the responsibility for incomprehensible, intolerable and totally unjustifiable behaviour of his staff”.