Resident of German Hostel Arrested After Fatal Fire

A Lebanese refugee was arrested Saturday on suspicion of setting a fire that killed 10 people last week in a German foreigners’ hostel where he and his family lived.

A judge ordered the 21-year-old man, who was not identified, to be formally placed under arrest late Saturday for aggravated arson, 10 counts of murder and 38 counts of attempted murder, prosecutors in the northern port of Lubeck said.

“He has been questioned thoroughly and denies he committed the crime,” the prosecutors said in a statement.

Investigators took the man into custody Friday evening with his two brothers, who were subsequently released.

The statement gave no reason why the man might have started the fire but said: “According to what we now know, it should be assumed the fire was set inside the house, which was locked. It seems that an arson attack from outside can be ruled out.”

Thursday’s fire was the worst catastrophe to hit a German home for foreign refugees. Ten immigrants--six children and four adults--died in the blaze, and about 35 people were injured, some seriously.

Forty-eight people were inside when the fire started, which explains the number of murder and attempted murder charges.

German television said the arrest caused bewilderment among other residents of the hostel, which housed refugees from Zaire, Togo, Syria and Lebanon as well as ethnic German immigrants from Poland.

“The man’s father says he is innocent, and neighbors whom he apparently helped leave the hostel were also asking: ‘How could this man set the fire and then later help us get out? The whole thing makes no sense,’ ” a reporter for ARD television said.

Four young Germans were earlier questioned about the blaze but later released, amid fears that it was the latest in a series of neo-Nazi attacks on foreigners since right-wing violence surged in the wake of Germany’s 1990 reunification.

More than 2,000 demonstrators had rallied against racism in Lubeck earlier Saturday.

The demonstrators, many of them Africans and Arabs, marched from a central market to the burned-out building where investigators had finished searching for clues about how the fire began. There they observed a moment of silence.

Several marchers wore white bands around their heads or arms as a sign of mourning. Hundreds of Africans sang traditional songs of mourning from their homelands.

A police spokesman said investigators were still evaluating material they had collected at the scene. He did not say when they might announce what started the fire.