Chancellor Merkel hit with criminal complaint for being “glad” OBL is dead

posted at 4:01 pm on May 6, 2011 by Bruce McQuain

The world is officially nuts. I’m not sure how else you classify what follows. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany recently remarked on the death of mass murderer Osama bin Laden saying was “glad” he’d been killed. That prompted the following from a German judge:

But Hamburg judge Heinz Uthmann went even further. He alleges that the chancellor’s statement was nothing short of illegal, and filed a criminal complaint against Merkel midweek, the daily Hamburger Morgenpost reported Friday.

“I am a law-abiding citizen and as a judge, sworn to justice and law,” the 54-year-old told the paper, adding that Merkel’s words were “tacky and undignified.”

In his two-page document, Uthmann, a judge for 21 years, cites section 140 of the German Criminal Code, which forbids the “rewarding and approving” of crimes. In this case, Merkel endorsed a “homicide,” Uthmann claimed. The violation is punishable by up to three years’ imprisonment or a fine.

“For the daughter of a Christian pastor, the comment is astonishing and at odds with the values of human dignity, charity and the rule of law,” Uthmann told the newspaper.

Of course the judge is assuming it’s a “homicide” (certainly no proof exists that’s the case) and thus a criminal act. In fact, the Geneva Conventions will clearly show otherwise. Obviously he files his complaint with nothing more than his opinion as a basis.

So you say, it’s one extremist view, why get excited about it?

While the judge’s reaction may seem extreme, his sentiments are apparently shared by 64 percent of the German population. That was the proportion of Germans who said bin Laden’s death was “no reason to rejoice” in a poll published by broadcaster ARD on Friday.

Germany – never a bastion of human rights or individual freedoms – continues to live up to its past with a new extremist but pacifist twist. This is an example of absurdity masquerading as reason, extremism as normalcy and stupidity as compassion.

Everyone who loves freedom and hates mass murderers should be “glad” Osama bin Laden has been killed. He was a monster, just like one which once ruled the land this puffed up pratt Uthman lives in. As much as Germans claim to have been “disgusted” with the “jubilation” over OBL’s death, nonsense like this does them no favor. The disgust on this side of the Atlantic for a country that assaults free speech and protects the memory of a mass murderer by going after those who express satisfaction at his demise isn’t one that I or most anyone here would ever care to live in.

[HT: Tom W]

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Bruce McQuain blogs at Questions and Observations (QandO), Blackfive, the Washington Examiner and the Green Room.  Follow him on Twitter: @McQandO

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