Germany: Arson attempt at Black SPD politician's offices

German lawmaker Karamba Diaby said on Thursday that this local constituency office in the city of Halle, located in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt was subject to a "targeted attack" as a 55-year-old man sought to set the premises on fire with "a flammable liquid."

Images of the front door of the office showed cracked window panes and charred black markings indicating a recently-extinguished fire, particularly around the mailbox near the ground.

"The most important thing first: Nobody came to any harm," Diaby said in a statement. "But considerable damage to the property was caused and my constituency office will not be usable for the foreseeable future."

Diaby said that the suspect, a 55-year-old man, was known both to him and to police because of past incidents.

"The crime disgusts and angers me very much. Also because the suspected perpetrator is already known both to me and to police. I have filed several criminal complaints against him because of numerous offenses (among others racist insults)," Diaby wrote. "I now expect that these investigations will lead rapidly and consequentially to robust results."

He also said that as in previous comparable cases, he would not be intimidated.

Bystanders saw suspect, alerted police, and kept him at the scene

Locals in the eastern city of Halle were praised by Diaby and police alike for their actions late on Wednesday evening, when the fire was set.

"Witnesses saw a suspicious person (aged 55) standing in front of the building, and restrained the man until the arrival of police, who they had immediately informed," police said in a statement on the incident.

Police said that fire crews were quickly able to extinguish the blaze, but said there was damage to the main doorway as well as the wooden floor of the entrance hall.

"The 55-year-old was provisionally detained and is currently in police custody. Investigations continue," police wrote.

Not an unprecedented event

Diaby's offices also came under attack in 2020, when bullet holes were found in the doorway to his office, which sports pictures of the Senegalese-born 61-year-old German citizen.

In 2013, Diaby became the first African-born Black person to be elected to Germany's federal lower house of parliament, the Bundestag. He's a member of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee and the committee for development and cooperation among several other subsidiary roles in parliament.

His constituency in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt is known both for an above-average share of right-wing voters supporting populist parties like the Alternative for Germany (AfD) by broader German standards, and for an above-average concentration of neo-Nazi extremist groups or supporters. 

Halle, a city of around 240,000 people just west of Leipzig, was also the site of a shooting at a synagogue in 2019 where a neo-Nazi killed two people and injured another during the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. 

Senior German politicians were quick to condemn the incident. 

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, herself a Social Democrat, said she was "happy that the suspect could be apprehended so quickly thanks to courageous passers-by." 

"Anyone who attacks politicians, attacks our democracy. But democrats will not let themselves be intimidated," Faeser wrote on Twitter. 

The SPD's Saxony-Anhalt state group called it a "cowardly attack." 

Saxony-Anhalt's state premier, Christian Democrat Reiner Haseloff, said the goal of such attacks was to heighten a sense of "insecurity" both for officials and the general public. He also thanked the witnesses who appeared to have initiated a kind of citizens' arrest. 

The SPD's co-leader Saskia Esken meanwhile noted how Diaby's offices had already faced similar criminal damage.

"Again and again Karamba Diaby is exposed to massive threats, presumably from the extreme-right scene," she said. 

msh/rs (AFP, dpa)