Acquitted over ‘racist’ bombing

AN ALLEGED neo-Nazi was acquitted by a German court Tuesday for a bombing 18 years ago targeting Jewish immigrants at a commuter rail station.

Ralf Spies, 52, was cleared of 12 counts of attempted murder with a “racist” motive and a charge of causing an explosion in the attack in the western city of Duesseldorf on July 27, 2000.

The regional court in the city found him not guilty, after having released him from custody in May “for lack of sufficiently reliable witness testimony”.

All the victims were on their way back from a German language course when the explosive, hung in a plastic bag on a fence near the Wehrhahn station entrance, went off, sparking panic.

Ten eastern European migrants – six of them Jews from the former Soviet Union – were injured in the bombing.

A 26-year-old Ukrainian pregnant woman lost her unborn child and had to undergo emergency surgery after the blast ripped off one of her feet.

Her 28-year-old husband suffered wounds over his entire body from metal fragments unleashed in the explosion and was in a critical condition for several days.

Several of the victims are still in therapy to cope with their trauma, chief prosecutor Ralf Herrenbrueck said at the start of the trial.

The prosecution called for a life sentence.