Lawyer continues to gets death threats from neo-Nazis

BERLIN (AA) - A prominent German-Turkish lawyer said Friday that her family needed security as they continue to get death threats from neo-Nazis with ties to extremists within the ranks of police departments.

Lawyer Seda Basay-Yildiz, who represented families of the Turkish victims killed by the NSU, a neo-Nazi terror group, told local media that she has recently received another letter containing a death threat.

Basay-Yildiz said the letter had the signature of “NSU 2.0,“ a reference to the National Socialist Underground (NSU), which killed 10 people, including eight Turkish and one Greek immigrant as well as a police officer, between 2000 and 2007.

She criticized authorities in the central state of Hesse for failing to conduct an effective investigation against those police officers who took her personal information from official records, and shared them with the neo-Nazis.

Basay-Yildiz said although she moved to a new house after receiving the first serious threats in August 2018, her new address was also given to the far-right extremists, along with the names and other personal details of her family members.

Several police officers in Frankfurt were suspended in 2019 following an initial investigation by Hesse’s Interior Ministry but death threats with the signature of “NSU 2.0” continued since then, Basay-Yildiz told German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Despite the ministry’s failure to protect her personal information in official records, authorities have declined to pay the costs of additional security protection which was recommended by the local police, the daily reported.

“My family has become an open target, but Hesse’s Interior Minister is not willing to take any responsibility,” Basay-Yildiz said, criticizing the conservative minister Peter Beuth.