Alleged racial attack still troubles small German town

A couple of policemen doze in their car parked in front of the house of Joseph Kantelberg-Abdulla's family, as passers-by stroll across the market square. The small town appears to have returned to normal behind its timber-framed walls set among the idyll of Saxon hills and forests, but the scandal that set the narrow alleyways abuzz in November last year has not died down. Then it was said that Joseph's death in a crowded swimming pool in June 1997 had not been an accident, but rather the result of an attack by local racists who had tortured and then murdered him - and that the murder had been covered up by the authorities.

"The town is still unsettled. While the case remains unresolved and new suspicions are constantly being raised it will be impossible to return to normal," the town's mayor Mike Ruckh says. Sebnitz's Catholic priest, Father Norbert Mothes, is also acutely aware of the unease. "As soon as one raises the issue, everything comes bubbling up to the surface again," he says. A "large majority" of Sebnitz residents would prefer the Kantelberg-Abdulla family to move out, Mothes says, adding that he takes a more balanced view. "But if they left, that would help the town. The community has suffered a lot as a result of this case." Sebnitz hit the headlines when the case was made public in November last year. Joseph's parents, who ran a pharmacy, announced they believed right-wing radicals had killed their son. But the witnesses they had assembled turned out in the end to be untrustworthy and retracted their evidence. As a result, three youths from the town who had been arrested were released a few days later. The third medical report said the boy had died after a sudden heart attack, confirming earlier reports that he had not been murdered. Sebnitz residents remain divided in their attitudes to the family. "Many complain they have given the town a bad reputation, while others back them," a 60-year-old woman says. Ruckh is one of the few who still believes that reconciliation is possible, but even he says the family has to make the next move. "They must provide the basis for a change in attitude," he says. And Father Mothes takes a similar view: "Before reconciliation is possible, an acknowledgement of wrongdoing is necessary. But we are a long way from that." Renate Kantelberg-Abdulla, Joseph's mother, has no intention of issuing an apology.

"A lot of people are telling us not to give up and that we should persist until the truth has been ascertained," she says. She and her Iraqi husband believe they have good reasons for not abandoning the murder theory, despite the third medical report, and have commissioned a fourth report to be undertaken outside Germany. The family has not yet decided whether it will remain in Sebnitz. "It's difficult to say. We want to wait to see how the situation develops," Renate Kantelberg-Abdulla, 48, says. She says they are taking seriously the 100 threatening letters they have received but are refusing to be intimidated into leaving. There is another aspect to the situation. "From an economic point of view we are in a miserable state," Saad Kantelberg-Abdulla says. The family business is facing bankruptcy after turnover dropped by 90 per cent. They are not alone in their difficulties. In Sebnitz unemployment is currently running at around 22 per cent. "Many houses are empty, and many people, in particular young people, are moving out in search of a better life," says Laszlo Meszaros, who runs a bookshop on the market square. Now there is anxiety that the "Joseph case" could cast a continuing blight on the town's economy. Ruckh is not prepared to estimate the economic consequences of the scandal, although he has great hopes for the aid programme being drawn up by Saxony's state government.

(dpa)