Ratingen explosion: "It smelled of fuel everywhere"
An expert witness has reconstructed the inferno and revealed new details in the trial surrounding the alleged murder attack on emergency services in Ratingen near Düsseldorf. He was still in the apartment on the tenth floor of the tower block on the day of the attack, shortly after the fire had been extinguished, 55-year-old fire expert Christoph Winter told the Düsseldorf district court on Wednesday.
The smell of fuel hit him everywhere. In the hallway of the apartment, everything from a height of 90 centimetres was burnt and even the plaster had flaked off. According to the evidence, the temperatures were over 150 degrees and briefly reached 1000 degrees Celsius.
In the hallway, he discovered a deposit on the floor which, when turned over, turned out to be a melted red 10-liter plastic bucket. This was probably filled with four to six liters of petrol. The petrol had been poured onto the seriously injured policewoman and the officers standing behind her from a distance of around one and a half meters.
A 57-year-old man from Ratingen is on trial for nine counts of attempted murder. He remains silent about the charges.
In the course of his investigation, the expert identified several process failures that may have contributed to the catastrophic explosion. This silence from the defendant has only fueled suspicion that he was involved in these processes leading up to the explosions, which some believe were intentionally set as part of the crime scene.
Source: www.dpa.com
