On October 25, 2012, a special operations unit (SEK) from the State Criminal Police Office (LKA) in Hanover, during a nighttime operation in Rollshausen, Lower Saxony, forcibly entered the wrong apartment, tied the man up in bed, and severely traumatized the family. Due to fear, the family later had to leave the mistakenly entered apartment and no longer live in Rollshausen.
The Göttingen public prosecutor's office has discontinued its investigation into the SEK (Special Deployment Commando) officers responsible for the error, on suspicion of bodily harm in office, in a decision announced on July 17, 2013. The operation was deemed to have resulted from a regrettable oversight. The point of contention in this case is whether the SEK officers could have committed negligent bodily harm through a breach of their duty of care.
"With this decision to drop the case, the public prosecutor's office is solely following the account of an accused SEK officer and not the conflicting accounts of the local police officers deployed on site, which are incriminating for the SEK," says attorney Sven Adam, expressing his astonishment at the discontinuation of the proceedings. At least two of the police officers directly involved in the house had signaled the correct apartment to the SEK investigators, thus ruling out any misunderstanding. Neither one of these officers nor one of the accused investigators has even been questioned in the investigation so far. "Why the local officers, who acted correctly and risked their lives, are not being believed or even questioned remains a mystery to the public prosecutor's office," Adam continues.
On behalf of the family, Adam has therefore now filed a complaint with the Attorney General's Office against the discontinuation of the investigation and called on the public prosecutor's office to immediately resume the investigation.
