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Police rule out neo-Nazis as culprits in German arson case

Other News Materials 4 April 2008 23:37 (UTC +04:00)

Police investigating an arson attack on a German apartment block with many Turkish tenants Friday officially ruled out suggestions that the fire had been set by neo-Nazis. ( dpa )

But they said they had not yet caught whoever set fire to a pram in the public foyer of the building in Backnang, 25 kilometres north- east of Stuttgart, on March 29 and drew swastika-style graffiti outside.

Five of the 25 people living in the building suffered ill effects from inhaling toxic fumes.

Police said they were reviewing tensions between neighbours as this might show who could have started the fire.

The fire set off fresh alarms in Germany's Turkish minority, which has been haunted since 1993 by nightmares of homicidal racists setting fire to their homes at night. In that year, five women were killed in the town Solingen in such a fire. The attackers were punished.

A residential-building fire in the city of Ludwigshafen in February this year killed nine ethnic Turks, but police said there is no evidence it was deliberately set on fire.

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