Fears of Arson Mount as Investigators Delve Deeper Into German House Fire

BERLIN, Feb. 6, 2008 — -- Three days after a fast-moving fire engulfed a multistory building in southwest Germany -- killing nine people, including five children -- investigators have begun to show area residents a sketch-portrait of a man whom two young witnesses claimed set the blaze.

German investigators in Ludwigshafen said they've questioned two girls, ages 8 and 9, who said they saw a German-speaking man setting fire to something with a lighter and then throwing it at a baby's carriage on the ground floor of the building. The girls, who first made the claim to German media Monday, helped police develop a sketch of the man the girls described.

Police say they are interviewing neighbors and former residents of the building hoping someone may recognize the man. They cautioned, however, that it is still too soon to label the incident a premeditated hate crime.

"We are investigating all possibilities in the case," police spokesman Volker Klein told ABC News. "Everything will be closely examined, and it's now still a bit too soon to make any claims."

Investigators with sniffer dogs spent the day examining the remains of the building in search for clues as to the cause of the blaze. Cranes removed debris and helped hold up portions of the building's roof to ensure that the whole structure didn't collapse. Police and fire officials said their investigation has been slowed because the century-old building is still too dangerous to inhabit.

Meanwhile, the 8-month-old boy who was thrown from the fourth-floor window during Sunday's fire has been reunited with his family, German police told ABC News. Doctors said the boy, Onur Calar, suffered no serious injuries after he was dropped 23 feet to safety by his uncle as the fire swept through the building. A police officer was able to safely catch the baby.

"I made eye contact with him [the police officer and knew that it would work," the uncle, Kamil Kaplan, told Germany's Bild newspaper. "The official took his jacket off and held it like a safety net. I kissed Onur again. Then I let him drop."

Onur's parents survived the fire but remain hospitalized with serious injuries.

The fire began Sunday on the ground floor, said Ludwigshafen fire officials. It quickly destroyed its wooden staircase, trapping dozens of residents and visiting family members. Two Turkish families are registered as residents, with a total of 24 people, according to city records. It's still unclear how many people were in the building at the time of the fire.

German police investigating the blaze said they found the word "Hass," the German word for "hate," scribbled on a wall of the entrance to a Turkish cultural center located in the building. It wasn't clear if the Neo-Nazi graffiti appeared before the fire. "Since the fire on Sunday the entire building has been off-limits, so we are not sure if this could have happened in the past few days," said police spokesman Michael Lindner.

Authorities have said that two small fires were started in the building in 2006, but that residents quickly put them out, and it is not yet clear whether they were related to the most recent fire.

All nine victims, which included a pregnant woman, and scores of the injured were of Turkish origin, raising fears in the Turkish community here of a targeted attack. The incident has revived memories of a firebomb attack by Germans in 1993 on a house in Solingen, about 200 miles north of Ludwigshafen, that killed five Turks and made headlines around the world.

Germany is home to about 2.7 million people of Turkish descent, and the story of the fire continues to make news in Turkey. A headline in today's Hürriyet, a popular daily broadsheet, published pictures of the two girls who claimed to have seen someone start the blaze under the headline "The Eyes of the Witnesses." The conservative Turkish Zaman daily said suspicions were growing that arsonists were responsible for the fire and that "racist youths" had threatened a family who lost members in the blaze.

The Turkish government is urging Germany to conduct a rigorous probe. State minister Sait Yazicioglu, who arrived in Germany yesterday to follow the investigation, inspected the charred remains of the building this morning. The Turkish ambassador to Germany visited the site Tuesday.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is making a previously scheduled visit to Germany Thursday and is expected to visit the fire scene as well.

But diplomatic ties between the two countries have become strained. German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble is calling for politicians on both sides not to jump to any conclusions about the fire's cause. In an interview with Suedwestrundfunk radio he called the fire "a terrible misfortune" and "a catastrophe." But, he added, "there is currently, so far as I know, absolutely no basis for any wide-ranging assumptions."

In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper, Schaeuble criticized Turkey's ambassador to Germany for saying it was strange that German politicians had ruled out any xenophobic motive before police had established the cause. "Sometimes ambassadors should be taught manners," the paper quoted Schaeuble as saying.