Chat with member of the Remmo clan: Ferat Koçak apologizes

The party had just distanced itself from Issa Remmo's appearance at the Neukölln Left's election party when an Instagram story from his son Firas Remmo burst into the celebratory mood after the election victory on Monday. Remmo published the story late Sunday evening. You can see a chat history of him with the Neukölln Bundestag member Ferat Koçak. Koçak confirmed the authenticity of the chat in the evening.

Koçak begins his message with the sentence: “Greet with respect back to your father.” He then asks about a personal meeting: "When will you be in the office? I can come by in the morning." In another message from February 17th, the directly elected MP asked for a video of his Bundestag speech to be distributed, in which he described the issue of “clans” as a “hysterical, ongoing debate”. “Gladly, brother,” was Firas Remmo’s answer.

Some members of the extended Remmo family are attributed to clan crime and were, among other things, responsible for the gold coin robbery in the Bode Museum in 2017 and the Dresden jewel theft in 2019. Issa Remmo is considered the head of the criminal structure, even if he himself was not convicted. Firas Remmo was arrested red-handed with three other family members in January when they tried to break into an ATM in southwest Berlin during the electricity blackout.

In his Instagram story, Firas Remmo now shares several speech excerpts from Koçak, in which he says, among other things: "Clan crime is not a clearly defined criminal offense. It is a political term with a racist history." Under the picture of the chat with Koçak he writes: "We are part of something big. We stand together, we stick together and we fight together for our goals."

Ferat Koçak also reacted in the evening with a statement that he sent to taz and shared on Instagram. Accordingly, the reports about the chat "unsettled the public. Rightly so: contacts between elected officials and people who are attributed to organized crime cannot be justified by anything." He will now “withdraw” in order to “evaluate his communication behavior and establish full transparency”.

Koçak states that Firas Remmo contacted him after a call for participation in a political action and that he wrote to him, “like any other Neukölln resident, and greets his father back with politeness.” He asserts: “At the time I had no knowledge of who it was.” He “only became aware of this shortly afterwards”. However, this did not lead to an immediate break in communication with Firas, who acts as “firas_i_rammo” on Instagram. Koçak writes: “The fact that I wrote to him afterwards, as I usually do with many people when I publish speeches, was a mistake for which I apologize.”

The Left had previously denied responsibility for Issa Remmo's appearance at the Neukölln district association party. “He wasn’t invited and was sent out again,” said Elif Eralp.

And Koçak also justified himself for a photo that was taken at the same election party and shows him with an official from the “Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine” (PFLP), which is classified as a terrorist organization in the EU. Accordingly, hundreds of photos were taken that evening. “I expressly distance myself from statements made by the person mentioned that glorify violence or terror,” explains Koçak.