21 schools in Duisburg were closed on Monday due to two “extremely right-wing” threat emails. However, on Thursday, a further case of a threat email was identified at a Duisburg gymnasium.
The latter case seems to have been resolved. According to a statement from the Duisburg police, a 15-year-old boy in Berlin has been identified as the sender of the email. He is a former classmate of the other three suspects aged 16 and 17 and the email was allegedly sent to prevent a test that was scheduled for that day.
Last Friday, a first email containing a threat against the Gesamtschule Duisburg-Mitte arrived, as reported by the police, with “threatening and far-right statements” and an announcement of “crimes for Monday.” On Sunday, another email with threats was sent to 13 more schools in Duisburg. As a result, 20 further schools and a primary school canceled classes for the day due to safety concerns and the police monitored the schools on that day.
The two incidents follow the same pattern but are at most connected in the sense of imitation crimes. Local media speculated that it could be the same perpetrators, but this is contradicted by the fact that another email from the first sender arrived later on Monday, in which he, as reported by the WAZ, stated that “he did not intend to threaten anyone and that he was only interested in drawing attention to the school system.”
However, the text of the emails is still unknown. The threat email against the Max-Planck-Gymnasium on Thursday also allegedly contained a “right-wing speech style.” In both cases, it is now clear that the target and motivation were completely different and the perpetrators only knew how to create the most panic with the right formulations.
The four teenagers involved in the second incident will now have to bear the costs of the police operation, in addition to facing criminal prosecution. The same applies to the unknown sender of the first two threat emails.