Love Parade organiser to put video of disaster on internet

Aug 28, 2010, 15:28 GMT

   Berlin - The organiser of the Love Parade festival in Germany in which 21 people died vowed in an interview Saturday to post on the internet 22 hours of video depicting the disaster, in order to show that the police were to blame.

The images were automatically saved by seven closed-circuit television cameras during the Love Parade on July 24 in Duisburg.

Rainer Schaller, 41, organized the techno-music event in an industrial zone which had only one public entrance. When ingoing and outgoing crowds pushed against one another, people were crushed.

Interviewed by the German magazine Der Spiegel, Schaller, whose company Lopavent had a concession to run the event, said he intended to reveal tactical errors by police who formed cordons in an attempt to avert a crush.

'We have assembled the facts, everything we could see, and noted it all down exactly,' he said. 'We are going to publish the complete video files on a website. More than 22 hours (of video). Everyone should get their own impression of what happened.'

Police and city officials have accused Schaller's organization of failing to hold back new arrivals at the event, but Schaller charged that the cordons, formed by police officers linking arms, were the cause.

'The cordons led to a stoppage and were probably the cause of the disaster,' he said. 'To our minds, the question is why the police did this.' He said two of the cordons were formed in road underpasses outside the grounds and the third on a ramp up to the grounds.

Schaller said he was conscious of a 'moral responsibility' for the disaster.

'I was the organizer and these people would not have died if this event had not taken place. Who is actually to blame must be established by the legal system. Obviously I will face up to responsibility,' he said.