Police raid far-right German party after "go-home" letters

National Democratic PartyBerlin  - German police raided the headquarters of the far- right National Democratic Party (NPD) on Wednesday after it sent letters to German politicians with immigrant backgrounds telling them to "go home."

The original copy of the letter and three computers were seized as evidence during the raid in suburban Berlin.

The letter, made to look like it had come from an official body, had the heading: "Notice of an orderly implementation of the return of people with an immigrant background to their country of origin."

Klaus Wowereit, mayor of Berlin, and other politicians called for the NPD to be declared a Nazi group and outlawed.

"This shows yet again that if the party is not banned, it gets up to things that endanger our democracy," said the Social Democratic mayor.

Prosecutors said they were studying if Joerg Haehnel, head of the NPD for the city-state of Berlin, had roused inter-ethnic hatred, the crime of sedition. He sent the letter to
30 candidates of other parties in Berlin state.

In the city of Frankfurt, police searched the office of the Hesse state leader of the NPD in connection with a hate poster.

A radio station, FFH, said it showed a flying carpet with a man and woman of Muslim appearance and a black man on it, and the words, "Happy Flight Home." Prosecutor Doris Moeller-Scheu said the NPD man, Joerg Krebs, might face sedition charges.

The anti-foreigner NPD is contesting Germany's September 27 general election, but is expected to fall well short of the 5 per cent minimum share of the vote needed for parliamentary representation.

At regional elections last month the NPD won re-election to Saxony's state parliament.

Germany's top court turned down a quest to ban the party in 2003, but there have been renewed calls this year for a fresh attempt to outlaw the NPD, which claims to have more than 7,000 members nationwide. dpa