German Prosecutor: No charges against President Abbas over Holocaust remarks

Jerusalem24 – Yara Alnazer – The Berlin public prosecutor’s office will not be investigating Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas over remarks related to the Holocaust he made at a press conference in the Federal Chancellery in Germany in August.
At a request from Die Bild, the Prosecutor’s office explained there was “no initial suspicion of incitement to hatred”, and that Abbas’ aim was “to highlight what he believed to be the crimes committed by the Israeli army and to point out their injustice, while attempting a historically extremely inappropriate comparison.”
Berlin police initially opened an investigation into whether Abbas’ comment violates Germany’s hate speech laws, whereby he accused Israel of committing “50 massacres, 50 holocausts” against the Palestinian people since 1947, after he had been asked by a journalist if he would formally apologize for the 1972 Olympics attack in Munich during which 11 Israeli athletes, one German police officer, and five Palestinian hostage takers were killed.
The remarks sparked outrage and Schulz condemned them afterwards, tweeting “I am disgusted by the outrageous remarks made by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas”.
President Abbas clarified his statement later and reaffirmed that “the Holocaust is the most heinous crime in modern human history”, stressing that he was not intending to deny the Holocaust.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Riyad Al-Maliki welcomed this morning the Prosecutor’s decision to drop the case.
According to RBB24, the investigation process is now before the Attorney General’s Office for re-examination because of a formal complaint against the decision.