DÜSSELDORF (dpa-AFX) - According to NRW Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU), almost 500 criminal offenses were committed in connection with the evacuation of Lützerath. In the run-up to the eviction, 30 criminal offenses were registered, during the eviction almost 400 and during the large anti-coal demonstration on Saturday again more than 50 criminal offenses, Reul reported to the Interior Committee of the state parliament on Thursday. However, police officers were also being investigated in five cases.

Greta Thunberg, Luisa Neubauer and other climate activists had accused the police of disproportionate use of force. Reul again rejected this in the committee. The most serious injury during the demonstration had been a concussion. There had been 14 transports to hospitals - five of them had involved police officers, the rest had been demonstrators. They were mainly foot, leg, arm and hand injuries, as well as lacerations.

Activists had reported over the weekend that there had been life-threatening injuries during the demonstration. The police had contradicted this. NRW's head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Jürgen Kayser, also said in the committee meeting, "The narrative of excessive police violence has just not been confirmed so far."

Reul, on the other hand, emphasized that some of the activists had apparently planned for violence from the very beginning. There had already been corresponding calls in the run-up: "Kill cops" or "Between cop helmet and nose bone still fits a paving stone" had been slogans and graffiti. At the edge of the opencast mine, a police horse was deliberately made shy with blankets during the demonstration until it ran away together with the rider and galloped towards the edge of the mine. The officer had just been able to jump off under the howls of the demonstrators and then stopped the horse.

It had also been reported that disruptors had deliberately grabbed police officers' firearms. "In some cases, it has been possible to loosen one of the safeties on the holster already," Reul said. "I don't even want to rule out and imagine what could have happened there."

Lützerath, which belongs to Erkelenz west of Cologne, had been cleared in a major police operation that lasted for days against the resistance of hundreds of climate activists. The energy company RWE wants to mine lignite there./fc/DP/nas