It has been nearly five years since the start of the trial involving German neo-Nazi gang, National Socialist Underground (NSU) who went on a killing spree against immigrants. The victims' relatives who have become frustrated with the police's failure in solving the case, have turned to architects, to help unravel clues in the NSU scandal.
A man of Turkish origin named Halit Yozgat, 21, was shot to death inside an internet cafe he managed in the city of Kassel on Apr. 6, 2006, according to NSU Watch. Then it appeared during the trial of the remaining NSU attackers, that an intelligence agent from the central German state of Hesse, Andreas Temme, had been in the cafe at the time of the murder, and did not report the incident.
Forensic Architecture, founded by architect Eyal Weizman decided to step in to analyze the NSU scandal by re-enacting a model of the crime scene inside the Berlin's House of World Cultures arts center. "If a pile of rubble is what's left of your crime scene an architect may be better qualified to analyze it than [the police]," Weizman said.
A team of architects from the London-based organization re-enacted the scene using a leaked police video of Temme, as well as statements received from four witnesses in the internet cafe at the time of the murder. Three "sensory tests" were used to determine whether Temme would have heard, seen or smelt the crime's evidence to investigate the NSU scandal.
According to The Guardian, Weizman's team had two main findings that contributed to the NSU scandal investigation. One showed that the shot would have still been audible at 86 decibels to Temme, while the other showed that Yozgat's body would have been visible to him while he paused to make his payment on the blood-splattered counter.
While the question of what Temme was doing at the crime scene remains unanswered by the architecture detectives, it could be that he had started researching a case on his own without permission from his superiors. Meanwhile, Forensic Architecture will present their findings pertaining the NSU scandal to the Munich higher municipal court on May 10.
