Ahmet Sarlak

The victim

Ahmed Sarlak was the son of Turkish guest workers and was completing vocational training at the time of his murder. He died one day after the attack.

The crime

On August 9, 2002, Ahmed Sarlak was brutally stabbed in the chest and abdomen by the right-wing extremist skinhead Carlos N. at the Sulzbach Salt Fountain Festival. The perpetrator was 25 years old at the time of the crime and belonged to a local group of radical right-wing skinheads.

The investigation

During the subsequent house searches in the apartment of the perpetrator, handguns and a swastika flag were seized. The security officers were initially threatened by the perpetrator with a pistol. In the indictment, the prosecution cited "hatred of foreigners" as the motive for the crime.¹ However, the court declared that a right-wing extremist motive had not been proven and sentenced the perpetrator to six years for manslaughter.

Civil society reactions

A demonstration organized by the city of Sulzbach and the Turkish community was attended by over 3,000 people, as well as then-mayor Werner Zimmer (SPD), then-Saarland Interior Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (CDU), and then-Turkish Consul General Menter Sahinler. Interior Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer expressed herself to the effect that the state government would do everything in its power to "comprehensively clarify this terrible case."¹ After the right-wing extremist perpetrator was sentenced to only six years in prison and right-wing extremist background of the act was misjudged by the court, there was another demonstration with about 400 participants.[^2

Footnotes

1. (Türke starb wegen "Ausländerhass", taz)[https://taz.de/!1093539/], accessed 03.02.2022 ↩ ↩²