BERLIN, April 24 (UPI) -- FBI profilers say the motive for the killing of nine immigrants to Germany, eight of them Turks, was ethnic hatred.
The victims, eight Turks and one Greek, died between 2000 and 2006 in locations across Germany. Investigators say the killers were from a neo-Nazi cell based in Zwickau, Der Spiegel reported.
The magazine said it had obtained a report the U.S. agency submitted to German investigators who had requested assistance.
When the request was made in 2007, German agencies were in disagreement about the motive for the killings, with some investigators arguing it was the work of organized crime.
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FBI profilers saw a single person at work, describing the killer as a "disciplined, mature individual who is shooting the victims because they are of Turkish ethnic origin or appear to be Turkish."
"The motivation is a combination of personal cause and thrill," the FBI analysis said. "The offender has a personal, deep rooted animosity towards people of Turkish origin, for some real or perceived unknown reason."
The case was broken accidentally last year when investigators found the weapons used after two neo-Nazis, Uwe Bohnhardt and Uwe Mundlos, bungled a bank robbery. They died in an apparent suicide in November.
Beate Zschape, who shared an apartment with the two in Zwickau, turned herself in.
Police discovered a DVD in which the three claimed responsibility for the series of nine killings and other crimes, including the killing of a policewoman and a bombing in a Turkish neighborhood in Cologne that injured 22 people. The three called themselves the National Socialist Underground.
