By Anadolu staff
BERLIN (AA) - The daughter of a man murdered by neo-Nazis confronted convicted terrorist Beate Zschaepe in a courtroom Thursday, demanding she reveal the truth about the far-right NSU terror group.
Gamze Kubasik stood and shouted at Zschaepe during her testimony at the Higher Regional Court in Dresden, in the trial of another right-wing extremist accused of supporting the terror group between 1998 and 2011.
"Tell the truth! You are responsible for my father's death," Kubasik called out. "Who helped you? Just tell the truth. You destroyed my life," she shouted at Zschaepe. Court officials escorted Kubasik from the courtroom, and the proceedings were suspended.
The outburst came after Zschaepe told the court that she could not apologize for the murders committed by the National Socialist Underground (NSU) terrorist group because "there is no excuse" for such crimes.
Kubasik's father, Mehmet Kubasik, was one of eight Turkish immigrants murdered by the NSU. He was killed on April 4, 2006, in Dortmund, where he ran a small shop.
"I cannot explain it myself," Zschaepe said when asked about the NSU's murder spree in the early 2000s. She acknowledged that she, Uwe Mundlos, and Uwe Bohnhardt—the NSU's two other members—had held xenophobic views since their time together in Jena, Thuringia.
The 50-year-old Zschaepe is currently serving her sentence at Chemnitz women's prison. Earlier this year, German authorities accepted Zschaepe into the EXIT rehabilitation program for former extremists. Successful completion of the program, which requires participants to renounce extremist ideology and demonstrate genuine remorse, could influence future parole considerations.
However, family members of NSU victims say Zschaepe has not shown sincere remorse and has failed to provide investigators with information about the murders, the terror group's wider support network, and potential ties to informants or security service officers.
In October, a petition opposing Zschaepe's potential early release gathered more than 150,000 signatures.
- NSU's racist murders
Between 2000 and 2007, the NSU murdered 10 people—eight Turkish immigrants, one Greek citizen, and one policewoman—while conducting bombings and robberies throughout Germany.
The German public first learned of the NSU’s existence and its role in the murders on Nov. 4, 2011, when two members of the group, Mundlos and Bohnhardt, committed suicide after an unsuccessful bank robbery.
The police found evidence in their apartment showing they were behind the murders.
Until 2011, Germany's police and intelligence services dismissed any racial motive for the murders and instead treated immigrant families as suspects with connections to mafia groups and drug traffickers.
Recent media revelations have shown that the country’s domestic intelligence agency BfV and its local branches had dozens of informants who had contacts with the NSU suspects in the past. But officials insisted that they had no prior information about the existence of the NSU terror cell or its role behind the killings.
The NSU scandal has initiated a broader discussion in Germany regarding institutional racism and the shortcomings of German security and intelligence organizations, which have faced criticism for underestimating the threat posed by far-right extremism.