Federal prosecutors now call it a domestic terror organization suspected of murdering eight Turks and one Greek from 2000 to 2006 and fatally shooting a policewoman in 2007.
In a statement issued yesterday, the office maintained that it had no information regarding the whereabouts of three members - two of whom apparently died in suicides - since last tracking them in 1998.
The third, identified as 36-year-old Beate Z., was arrested late Sunday on charges of cofounding and belonging to a terror organization. She is further alleged to have set fire to a house used by the group in an effort to destroy evidence, but has refused to speak with police since turning herself in last week.
Police have been sifting through the remains of the house in the eastern city of Zwickau, near the Czech border, that she is believed to have torched on Nov. 4, the same day that suspects Uwe B. and Uwe M. were found dead in a mobile home in the eastern German city of Eisenach, 110 miles west of Zwickau.
In the mobile home, investigators also found the service weapons of the two police officers attacked by the group in 2007, when a 22-year-old policewoman was fatally shot in the head and a fellow officer was seriously wounded.
A fourth suspect belonging to the group, identified as Holger G., 37, was brought before a judge and detained. He is believed to have supported the group, including helping to facilitate the 2007 attack on police in the western city of Heilbronn.
Many Germans are asking how the group, which allegedly included far-right extremists who were known to authorities, could have succeeded in carrying out crimes while undetected for so many years.
Chancellor Angela Merkel called it “a shame for Germany’’ and vowed at a party conference in Leipzig to do everything possible “to bring justice to the people.’’
The widening case has sparked a fierce debate over the government’s ability to protect the millions of immigrants who call Germany home, as it seeks to attract more skilled workers from abroad.
“I find it shocking that our country was not capable of protecting 10 innocent people from a band of far-right terrorists,’’ said Thomas Oppermann, a senior lawmaker with the opposition Social Democrats.
He noted that Merkel’s government has slashed the budget to fight far-right extremism in recent years.
