BERLIN, Aug. 29 (Xinhua) -- State prosecutors have launched an investigation on Wednesday after the confidential police arrest warrant against a suspect accused of a recent murder in the German town of Chemnitz was published online by far-right groups in Germany.
A spokesperson for the Saxon regional ministry of justice confirmed that the Dresden State Prosecution Office was investigating whether German officials had illegally leaked official secrets to right-wing extremists.
"This matter must be clarified immediately, and the necessary legal consequences must be drawn," a statement by the ministry read.
"If the arrest warrant was leaked from the police to right-wing extremist circles, then we have a real problem to address," Martin Dulig, deputy governor of Saxony, told press on Wednesday.
Judicial authorities have said that the document shared online is genuine.
Awkwardly for Dulig's government, the incident follows closely on the heels of the so-called "Pegizei" scandal in Saxony in which the state criminal police office stands accused of maintaining close ties with far-right groups and undermining press freedom.
The warrant in question was delivered to a 22-year-old Iraqi national who is believed by authorities to have played a part in a fatal knife attack on a 35-year-old German during a violent brawl which erupted at the Chemnitz "City Festival" on Sunday. The incident sparked two days of widely-publicized violent demonstrations organized spontaneously in the East German town by several far-right organizations.
According to the latest estimates, as many as many as 6,000 individuals assembled during the first rally. On Tuesday, at least 20 people were left injured in clashes between far-right and anti-Nazi rallies.
The Iraqi national, together with a 23-year-old Syrian, is currently being reprimanded in custody by German authorities in the course of their investigation into the Chemnitz murder case.
