Oury Jalloh

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Oury Jalloh, a 36 year-old refugee from Sierra Leone died by a fire on 7 January 2005, in a police station in Dessau, tied with handcuffs to a fire-proof mattress at his hands and feet. The cause of death was officially recorded as heat shock.

Immediately after Oury Jalloh's death the institutions started to block, it took 5 weeks until the police gave its first official statement about this case and further fully two years until it came to a legal process what was only possible under the enormous public pressure by the initiatives.

The court case

Judical results of determinations:

Chronicle
8:30 am: Oury Jalloh gets admitted in the police station of Dessau, two police officers observe him in the examination room (custody range)
8:45 am: Oury Jalloh gets searched by the police officer Hans-Ulrich M. in the examination room of the Dessau' police station
9:10 to 9:30 am: medical inspection and blood sample taking of Oury Jalloh, who is already there tied with handcuffs to the examination table at his hands and feet
9:30 am: Oury Jalloh gets transferred to cellar 5 and gets tied with handcuffs to the mattress at his hands and feet
10:00 am: controll of the cell, there Oury Jalloh was found oriented and communicated with the police officers
10:03 am: controll by another police officer who found Oury Jalloh sleeping or simulated sleeping
10:30 am: leading patrol officer Beate H. switched on the intercom system
10:37 am: newly cell controll by a police officer without any anomalies found
11:05 am: after clacking sounds from the cell two officers controlled the cell again and spoke with Oury Jalloh
11:45 am: Beate H. decided to check the cell. When Jalloh complained about his shackles being too tight, she answered saying she had no authority to do anything and went back upstairs again.
shortly before 12:00 pm: Oury Jalloh cries and calls for assistance. The reaction of Andreas S. consisted of turning down the volume on the intercom system. Beate H. is said to have immediately turned the volume back up
from 12:04 pm to 12:09 pm: the smoke alarm in Jalloh’s cell went on. Beate H. described what then happened. Patrol group leader Andreas S. switched off the alarm. But the alarm immediately started again. He picked up the cell key and switched off the alarm a second time. She asked him to hurry up. At this instant, the smoke detector sounded from the corridor in front of the cells.

Andreas S. then started to move downstairs, telling the colleague Mö. to come with him. When the two officers opened the cell door, dense black smoke poured out.
12:09 to 12:11 pm: efforts to get into the cell and rescue Oury Jalloh failed through the strong smoke emission
12:11 pm: while Andreas S. turned round and ran back upstairs, calling for a fire extinguisher, his colleague grabbed a blanket and ran into the cell, where he saw a man lying burning on the mattress. He was unable to determine whether he was still alive; he was also unable to release him as he did not have the keys.

Beate H. informs the rescue coordination center about the fire.
12:18 pm: the ambulance of the red cross arrives at the police station
12:20 pm: the fire brigade arrives at the police station
12:21 pm: first fire fighters arrive in the basement, later two times further fire fighters get into the basement
12:35 pm: the fire brigade recovers the burning dead body of Oury Jalloh, immediately they put out the fire

Antinomies and inconsistences in the police accounts

• in the first of four statements given by Beate H., she said that Andreas S. switched off the fire alarm two times and first went to the cell of Oury Jalloh after the smoke detector sounded from the corridor in front of the cells, which she later "qualified" closer to the version of Andreas S.
• accordingly to Andreas S. he immediately went to look after Oury Jalloh as the first fire alarm broke out, which stands contrary to Beate H.'s first statement
• accordingly to Andreas S. he called police men Kö. from the gatehouse, which was disproved by the statements of other police men (this question was of high interest for the court's time table)
• accordingly to Hans-Ulrich M. he was between 11:30 am and 12:10 in the cafeteria, which could not been confirmed by other police men, also his statement that he tried to put out the fire nobody could confirm
• Beate H. several times stated that at 11:30 she heard through the intercom system sounds like there was another controll in the cell No. 5, which was not mentioned in the custody book, in the judical examination she tries to evade this question several times after long time of thinking about it, finally she answers on the question by the lawyer, if "yes" or "no" with "yes".

Court decision:

After a 59-day trial, the court handed down its judgement, with the presiding judge acquitting the two police officers. The judge, Manfred Steinhoff, declared that the trial had failed because of the determination of the police authorities to do everything possible to cover up the involvement of police officers in the burning death of Oury Jalloh. The judgement resulted in tumult in the court and left speechless those observing the trial. The judge's own coment to his judgement was: “This has nothing to do with the rule of law.”

The prosecution as well as the the lawyer of civil action lodged an appeal on points of law against the court decision.

Central questions the legal process left open

• 1. What happened really in the police cell No. 5?

Evidences disappeared (the second handcuff as well as the most of the minimum one hour long video material directed by police officers disappeard) others suddenly appeared (the lighter was not mentioned in the list of artefacts by 10.01.2005 it appeared first one day later), involved police officers demonstrably placed false testimony but the judge and the prosecutor still sticked to the thesis that Oury Jalloh looted the mattress on his own. Instead of dwelling on the countless antinomies and inconsistences in this case, they concentrated only on the 6 minutes between the supposed blowout of the fire and the heat shock of Oury Jalloh. Fully three fire investigative reports only circled arround that question, while the key questions were ignored and left open.

• 2. How could it came to the fire?

In a reconstruction of the fire the court's goal was to proof, wether Oury Jalloh was able to remove a lighter from the trouser pockets or from inside the underwear, to set fire to the “highly flammable” filling of the mattress. For the shackled police officer this was only possible under enormous acrobatic efforts. He only needed to hold the lighter underneath the prepared hole of the mattress, for long enough. How Oury Jalloh shall unseamed the fire proofed cleading of the mattress was not a subject of the determination, in the reconstruction itself the hole was cutted with a 20 cm long sharp item. Also the legal process left open the question how/where Oury Jalloh got the lighter to loot the mattress...

• 3. What about the injuries recovered by the second autopsy?

A second autopsy (applied by the lawyer of civil action) was rejected by the prosecution, after a consultation with the department for forensic medicin, what considered further investigations as needless. However the record of interrogation scheduled "fisticuffs" between the police and the prisioner and the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung (a daily paper) reported of broken wrists. Several Initiatives financed the second autopsy on their own. The results of the forensic medicin in this second autopsy recovered a broken nasal bone, busted ear-drums and broken in the cribriform plate. Because of the fire damages as well as maybe later added artefacts in the first autopsy, it was not possible anymore to recover the exactly time of death or a possible damage of the viscera.

• 4. Why is a person who burns alive not screaming for help?

The witnesses Beate H., Petra Sch. and Kerstin Se. reported anything about an agony by Oury Jalloh. Beate H. told the court Oury Jallah first answered with "Release me – Fire!" after she told him that someone is on the way. Accordingly to the two coroners Oury Jalloh had has reacted panic after recognizing the fire, especially under the influence of alcoholics. The prosecution reasons that Oury Jalloh was unconscious during the four minutes after the fire blow out and first awake from Beate H.'s speech. As he then called for help he deep breathed several times the hot air causing his death by heat shock.

• 5. Why was Oury Jalloh in his condition tied to the mattress and left without visual observation?

The blood sample taken by the neurologist Dr B. at the police station showed a BAC close to 3 ‰, also rests of cocaine were found, but this neurologist still attested Oury Jalloh adhesiveness. With the reason that he resisted he was tied later in the cell with handcuffs to the mattress at his hands and feets. Even court testimony from forensic pathologists had no influence on the judgement. According to this testimony, even had Oury Jalloh not been burned to death by the still unresolved issue of the fire, the stress position in which he was shackled meant he may well have suffered heart failure or have suffocated on his vomit.

• 6. What about Beate H.'s statement that there was another cell controll at 11:30 am?

see Antinomies and inconsistences in the police accounts

• 7. Where was Hans-Ulrich M. between 11:30 am and 12:10 pm?

see Antinomies and inconsistences in the police accounts