Cologne bombing remembered

Cologne recalled the bombing in its mainly Turkish-migrant Keupstrasse with a cultural festival on Monday to recall the 22 people who were injured in 2004 and repair mistrust caused by police mishandling of the case.

Maas told a 10th anniversary festival forum that the initial "criminalization" of injured victims - because police initially regarded them as suspects in a gangland bombing - was unbelievable.

"There were many who made mistakes," Maas said, adding: "I am ashamed that the German state did not manage over so many years to ensure that innocent citizens were better protected."

Seven years passed until late 2011 when a perpetrator video emerged showing that the bombing was the work of an anti-immigrant group calling itself the National Socialist Underground (NSU).

One surviving member is still on trial in Munich over 10 NSU murders committed elsewhere in Germany between 2000 and 2007.

Different but living together, says Gauck

Visiting the three-day festival's closing event in Cologne's eastern riverside suburb of Mülheim, German President Joachim Gauck condemned what he called "far-right extremist despisers of democracy."

Gauck said feelings of mistrust were sown among Keupstrasse victims because authorities did not assist them and even regarded some as suspects.

Gauck said the festival for the victims and their families was a gift for the whole of Germany and a message to racists: "We're showing how we want to live in our country -- respectfully and peacefully."

"We are different. But we belong together," Gauck said. "And we stand by all those who are threatened by xenophobic violence to say: You are not alone."

"The false suspicions of the authorities were for me the attack, almost worst that the crime itself," said Uzay Özday, who works in a family confectionary shop in Keupstrasse.

The festival during Germany's Whitmonday public holiday was held under the slogan "Birlikte" - Turkish for "standing together" and also featured a number of Cologne's leading rock bands, including BAP led by Wolfgang Niedecken.

Still a scandal, says Özdemir

In Berlin, the co-leader of the Greens, Cem Ozdemir, who is of Turkish descent, said it was still a "scandal that the background circumstances of the NSU crimes have still not been fully clarified."

Last December, German authorities said they would re-examine almost 750 cases of killings or attempted killings to see if the suspects had far-right motives.

ipj/kms (epd, AFP, dpa)