Now it is really dirty. Steven Baack, former head of the special Commission Cold Cases of the Hamburg police, you must vacate due to severe estimation errors of his Desk and accused, in turn, the public Prosecutor’s office, they have contributed to the justice debacle. The checks, in turn, although its own potential failures, but also the question of whether Baack has made possibly even punishable by law.

Baack, 38 years old and ambitious, is the recent scandal in the Hamburg police. His police had rolled up a criminal case that occurred in 1980 in Steilshoop: A 16-Year-old was at night on the way home robbed, the attacker tried to rape and stab. The perpetrator was never identified.

Nearly four decades later, Baack came across a new track. To convict his Suspect, he turned but methods, not “had become, according to the narrow-lipped versions of police President Ralf Meyer in all respects to the offered high requirements” of the police.

This article dates back to the TIME no 48/2018. Here you can read the entire issue.

A judge at the Hamburg district court had clear. Her chamber, which was negotiated over the case, acquitted the accused. Not only from a lack of Evidence, but because he is Convinced the judge is innocent. On the dock he had come only because of “bad police work,” said the Chairman. She spoke of the dubious methods of investigation, of the suggestive questioning and even the deception of witnesses. The police decided to set up a working group to examine the allegations. Finally Baack was added.

The old cold case was the first in the ambitious police officer played an unfortunate role. Before he was a 2016 Soko-head, he had led a special unit. In the case of a use in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, he is mistaken for a suspect with an innocent man, and a chase. The man being chased by officers in balaclavas, believed in a Panic and hit the Gas, police officers from Baacks unit shot and injured the Innocent so severely that he lost an eye.

Then for Baack had no consequences. His appointment to the head of the Soko Cold Cases was, on the contrary, even as the ascent. According to the critical words of the judge, the Hamburg police had but to consequences. The new management of the Soko now Heike Uhde, 39 years old, chief Commissioner. She was a long time in the homicide and is considered to be competent.

Baack is mixed, wherever. A charge he has to fear. Nana from Bach, spokeswoman for the investigative authority, yet no evidence of a Crime Baacks. Him to legal consequences but disciplinary.

Of the two Victims of the failure, hardly anyone speaks. The woman, who was almost four decades ago, victims of a brutal crime, lived through in the failed process, a second nightmare. And Frank S., who was for half a year as a suspect, required by the police for damages.