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The Interior Minister of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Caffier, has resigned. He had been pressured to buy a gun from a suspected right-wing extremist. The CDU politician wants to maintain his mandate in the state parliament.
The Interior Minister of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Lorenz Caffier, has resigned. The CDU politician, who was under pressure to buy arms from a dealer with connections to the right-wing extremist scene, declared in Schwerin that he no longer had the necessary authority for his position due to the matter.
By resigning, he also wants to protect his family and those around him. The last days were an “unbearable burden.” It hurts him deeply and it is an extremely great burden for him to be suggested closeness to the correct circles. “I can only vigorously reject this accusation, it is simply absurd.” He wanted to keep his tenure in state parliament, Caffier said.
Regarding the purchase of the weapon, he said: “It was not a mistake to buy it, but how to handle it, I apologize for that.”
Since 2006 in the position of Minister of the Interior
Caffier has served as Minister of State for the Interior since 2006 and was also Deputy Prime Minister in the state government of Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig (SPD). Schwesig had asked Caffier over the weekend to clarify the circumstances of the purchase of the weapon since early 2018.
The CDU politician made a comprehensive statement on Monday. In it, he described as an error not being made public in May 2019 when allegations that the seller had connections to a far-right network became known.
Caffier claims to have known nothing of the merchant’s attitude
In the statement, he denied having known the extreme right attitudes of the seller when buying.
When he bought the weapon, neither the Interior Ministry nor the State Criminal Police Office (LKA), the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the Secretary of State or himself were aware of the seller’s right-wing extremist tendencies, he said. Caffier.
There was also no evidence of membership in a far-right organization or criminal acts on the part of the man. “It was not until May 2019 that the LKA investigations revealed signs of right-wing extremist tendencies,” he said. These are connections with the far-right network “Nordkreuz”.
The name dropped in 2017 in connection with the “Prepper” network
However, the name of the arms dealer had already been mentioned in July 2017 by a whistleblower to the federal authorities about the activities of the far-right network “Prepper”, while continuing the message.
Information about the testimony was sent to the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution in July 2017. However, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution “obviously had no real evidence of far-right activities” of the man.
In March 2018, the state office received documents. From this, however, no far-right knowledge could have been derived regarding the arms dealer. The State Office for the Protection of the Constitution was also not entitled to forward the documents to the LKA Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania or even to inform it.
