COMMENT: A case that raises more questions than it answers continues to unfold in Los Angeles. A German citizen of Chechnyan extraction was arrested for setting numerous fires in the L.A. area.
He allegedly performed the acts to protest his mother’s impending extradition to Germany. Following the arrest, his mother had some interesting things to say. (His mother appears to have been involved in the sex business and there may have been other criminal money-making enterprises in which both engaged.)
Dorothee Burkhart expressed fears that German Nazis may have been after her son and her conviction that Germany was secretly run by Nazis [1] operating out of public view, not an altogether reasonable view.
Among the considerations to be weighed in this puzzling story:
- After their flight from Chechnya, did the Burkharts become involved with neo-Nazi elements?
- Was there any relationship between some of the organized vice activities Dorothee Burkhart engaged in and Nazi elements, some of which draw income from such pursuits?
- Is Harry Burkhart actually suffering from psychological disorder or is this media misdirection to cover-up a deeper, more significant story?
- Might the Burkharts’ activities be connected to an organized crime milieu, perhaps one based in Europe?
- Is there any significance to the fact that the tip leading to Harry Burkhart’s arrest came from the State Department?
- Was this article edited to obscure information about Ms. Burkhart’s Nazi allegations?
EXCERPT: . . . Indeed, as investigators have begun to unravel the Burkharts’ tightly intertwined lives, they have happened upon a story perhaps more incredible than the fires themselves. It’s a tale of massage parlors, small-time con games, neo-Nazi conspiracies, and investigations into mysterious fires set in three countries.
With much of the details coming from Dorothee and Harry themselves — in volumes of convoluted testimony filed in a failed attempt to gain political asylum in Canada — it is harder yet to know where truth blurs into fiction. . . .