After the anti-Semitism allegations against the Westin Hotel in Leipzig, Gil Ofarim filed a complaint. But surveillance footage sheds new light on the case.
Leipzig – At the beginning of October the musician Gil Ofarim reported that he had become a victim of anti-Semitic hostility * in Leipzig. An employee of the Westin Hotel would have asked him to put away his necklace with the Star of David when he wanted to check in. In a video that he recorded in front of the hotel and uploaded to Instagram, Ofarim described his experiences and caused a sensation.
The accused hotel employee, however, accused Ofarim of defamation and filed a complaint. To the police, he described the incidents very differently. On October 12, the musician finally reported the employee. Now, recordings from the surveillance camera shed new light on the incident.
Gil Ofarim: Police have “serious doubts”
“Pack your star,” a person is said to have shouted according to the singer at the time. “Pack your star”, the check-in employee said about Ofarim’s necklace. “Then he said if I wrap it up now, I can check in,” Gil Ofarim reported in his Instagram video.
But videos from the surveillance camera in the Westin Hotel, which are available to the Leipziger Volkszeitung and Bild, are supposed to show that Gil Ofarim did not wear a chain with a Star of David, at least not visibly. The LVZ reports, citing investigators, that the material shows an excited-looking Gil Ofarim at the hotel’s check-in counter, but no chain around his neck. For data protection reasons, the sound is not recorded with surveillance cameras.
Gil Ofarim: Accusations of anti-Semitism against hotel employees in Leipzig
The Leipzig police now have “serious doubts” about the originally described course of events, as reported by Bild am Sonntag. The evaluations and investigations have not yet been completed. Gil Ofarim now takes a position and, when asked by the newspaper, said: “The sentence that came up came from behind. That means someone recognized me. This is not about the chain. It’s actually about something much bigger. Since I can often be seen on TV with the Star of David, I was insulted because of it. “
Two days before the incident in Leipzig, Ofarim was seen at a show in honor of the Jewish musician Giora Feidmann on ZDF. “I wore the necklace to the gala and I almost never take it off. But it’s not about whether the chain was seen in the hotel or not. It’s about the fact that I was insulted in an anti-Semitic way. “
Ofarim recently emphasized to Der Spiegel: “It was exactly as I said in the video.” After the incident, there were demonstrations against anti-Semitism in front of the hotel in Leipzig. (lrg) * hna.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.
