The head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has stepped down over blunders made in a probe of 10 murders, mainly of immigrants, blamed on a neo-Nazi gang, the interior ministry said Monday. Heinz Fromm, who has held the post for 12 years, announced his decision to take early retirement from the end of the month to Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich, the minister said in a written statement. Friedrich said that Fromm “was, as he conveyed, himself surprised and distressed about the mistakes by employees in his authority”. “He is, like me, deeply worried about the resulting loss of confidence in the domestic intelligence agency,” the minister said. Germany was left reeling by last year’s discovery of a far-right trio calling itself the National Socialist Underground (NSU), which was blamed for a seven-year murder spree of 10 people, mostly shopkeepers of Turkish origin. The case surfaced in November only when two members of the NSU were found dead in an apparent suicide pact and the other, a woman, turned herself in. Investigators initially suspected criminal elements from the Turkish community were behind the rash of killings. Authorities have faced criticism over how the small far-right group could operate with impunity for 11 years and the government has admitted gross errors by the security services. Pressure further increased last week after it emerged that files with information about a group of right-wing extremists were destroyed by authorities several days after the NSU came to light.
