Death of Oury Jalloh (2005)

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Oury Jalloh (1968-2005)

Oury Jalloh (born in 1968 in Kabala, Sierra Leone) was an asylum seeker who died in a police fire in Dessau, Germany. In 2005, Jalloh was taken to a police jail to sober up, since he was found intoxicated off the street by police from the eastern German city of Dessau. Three hours after the 21-year-old was sobered up in a police cell, his burnt, dead body was found in a haze of acrid smoke. The hands and legs of Jalloh, who was alone in the jail, were bound to a mattress. The case sparked national and international outrage.

For this case, two officers were charged with causing bodily harm with fatal effects and gross manslaughter but were absolved in December 2008 for lack of evidence. [1]

Details of the Event

Jalloh, who came to Germany in 2000, was taken to the police station on the morning of 7 January 2005. Officer Hans-Ulrich März (44) told the Dessau court in 2007 that he had carried the man to the basement cell and stripped him of his jeans. Since Jalloh had fought him off, März tied him hand and foot, chaining him to a mattress in the jail.

About three hours later, the station's smoke detector was activated. Assuming it was a false warning, duty officer Andreas Schubert (46) shut it off. A few minutes later, another separate warning was turned off from the cell ventilation system.

Schubert could hear Jalloh yelling over an intercom and cursing on one floor below. The temperature continued to increase when the fire took place in the cell. "There was a rippling sound, I assumed it was a water blockage. The toilets in the cells aren't the newest and are often blocked up," said Schubert. At the moment, he was on the phone and turned down the intercom volume.

"When I heard no further sounds, that was the moment I thought something wasn't right and at that moment the third alarm went off." When Schubert unlocked the cell door, six minutes after the fire began, Jalloh had died of heat shock. The duty officer faces charges of negligent manslaughter. [2]

Continued Investigation and Autopsy

The charred remains of Jalloh's body were found in the cell where he was being held. His wrists and ankles had been attached to the mattress on which he lay. Tests concluded that there were high amounts of alcohol and cocaine in his body. Police said he had taken his own life by igniting his mattress with a lighter. In 2012, the German Federal Court of Justice fined one of the police officers $12,040.

"The prosecutors said he sustained the injuries after he died," Nadine Saeed, IGOJ spokeswoman, told DW.

Saeed, along with IGOJ representatives, claims that the latest research reveals that Jalloh was wounded by police officers. It was also known that Jalloh's nasal bone was broken when his body burned, but the latest surgical study reveals that he had a broken rib and fractured his septum and the base of his skull.

Dr Boris Bodelle, who led the autopsy, claimed in the study that it was highly unlikely that Jalloh may have inflicted these injuries on himself or that an injury, such as a fall, could have caused them. [3]

Racial Bias in Policing

The two investigators (Jerzy Montag and Manfred Nötzl) concluded that the death of Oury Jalloh would have been avoidable if all the rules had been enforced. From the moment he was arrested to his final death, all action taken by Dessau police officers was either "illegal" or "flawed". Jalloh, they claimed, was not meant to be kept in detention for several hours, since his identification was obvious. If he had been released sooner, he certainly wouldn't have died.

The investigators found that the 2012 finding of involuntary manslaughter against the police officer in charge at the time of Oury Jalloh's death was also justifiable. They also did not challenge the validity of the closure of the trial in October 2017 due to lack of evidence. [4]

German police officers are biased every day. Everyday practice of so-called "racial profiling" routinely places black people at the center of police controls. This is how black people in Germany face chronic institutional discrimination. Furthermore, the case of Oury Jalloh who died in police detention in Dessau in 2005 is a well-known example of the deadly racism of the German police authorities. Police abuse, giving room to allegations of a racial history, is nothing new. [5]

Reference

  1. Death of Oury Jalloh. en.wikipedia.org. Retrieved on Feb 3, 2021.
  2. Scally, Derek. German police accused of racism over death of asylum seeker. March 28, 2007. irishtimes.com. Retrieved on Feb 3, 2021.
  3. Douglas, Elliot. Germany: New accusations of police violence in death of asylum-seeker. November 2, 2019. dw.com. Retrieved on Feb 3, 2021.
  4. Douglas, Elliot. Death of asylum-seeker Oury Jalloh: German investigators slam police, courts and politicians. August 28, 2020. dw.com. Retrieved on Feb 3, 2021.
  5. Why did Ousman Sey die?. July 18, 2012. no-racism.net. Retrieved on Feb 3, 2021.