Germany apologizes to UN committee on human rights for NSU murders

Germany apologized to the United Nations in Geneva on Thursday for mistakes made while investigating a series of murders committed by the neo-Nazi National Socialist Underground (NSU) terrorist gang, resulting in deaths of 10 people, including eight Turks. Markus Loning, human rights ombudsman to the German government, told the UN Committee on Human Rights that the NSU murders were without doubt the worst human rights contraventions in Germany in the last decades. Reiterating that the German president and chancellor had already apologized to the families of the victims, Loning said, "I would like to expressly repeat this apology here before this forum." Turkey's UN ambassador Oguz Demiralp also told the UN committee that three million Turkish people living in Germany were growing anxious in the face of xenophobia following the revelations of the neo-Nazi murder spree.