German neo-Nazi musician charged over serial murder song

BERLIN - Agence France-Presse

Neo-Nazis and their sympathizers march with torches to commemorate the 67nd anniversary of the bombing of Dresden on February 13, 2012 in Dresden, eastern Germany. AFP photo

German prosecutors said Tuesday they had charged the lead singer of a suspected neo-Nazi band who wrote a song about a series of racist murders thought to have been carried out by far-right extremists.

Authorities in the northwestern German city of Osnabrueck said they had charged the 42-year-old lead singer of the band "Gigi and the Brown Town Musicians" with incitement to racial hatred.

Prosecutors are also investigating two other songs on a CD entitled "Adolf Hitler Lives". One calls for all Turks in Germany to be deported to Istanbul, the other denies any Jews died in the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Alexander Retemeyer, a spokesman for prosecutors, told AFP: "We have pressed charges of incitement to racial hatred at the local court in Meppen." So far, only the singer, who has not been named by authorities, is under suspicion because he wrote the lyrics.

Germans have been shocked at the recent discovery of a small far-right group believed responsible for the unsolved murders of eight men of Turkish origin and a Greek between 2000 and 2006 as well as a German policewoman in 2007.

The killings had long been called the "kebab murders" because some victims ran snack shops.

Two members of the so-called National Socialist Underground claimed responsibility for the 10 deaths as well as a 2004 bombing in predominantly Turkish district of Cologne which wounded more than 20 people.

The two were found dead in November in an apparent suicide.

On Thursday, Chancellor Angela Merkel is due to lead a service commemorating the murders.