A parliamentary investigation in Germany into a series of killings that went undetected for more than a decade, has found security services made a series of blunders because of institutional bias against immigrants.
A 1400 page report was issued on Thursday after a review lasting 19 months of how police and intelligence agencies failed to stop the National Socialist Underground group killing 10 people - eight of them Turks - between 2000 and 2007.
The group was linked to the killings only after two members died in a murder-suicide pact after an unsuccessful bank robbery in 2011. A third member is now on trial.
Committee members said police and domestic intelligence agencies were quick to attribute the slayings to organised crime by immigrant groups, and never properly considered the possibility that the killings could have been racially motivated and linked.
The overarching theme is racism," committee member Petra Pau said. "The NSU crimes were racist and the investigations had racist traits."
Included in the 47 recommendations, the committee said German police and prosecutors should now be required to consider the possibility of a killing being a hate crime in every incident where the perpetrator is unknown.
It further recommended that more minorities be hired to serve in police and intelligence services.
