(dpa) - A probe by German and Turkish investigators into a fire that claimed the lives of nine Turkish women and children when it gutted a century-old tenement in the city of Ludwigshafen at the beginning of the month is nearing completion.
A police spokeswoman in the south-western city said Thursday that the report would not be made public until a psychological report had been submitted on two girls who claimed to have seen a man setting a fire in the stairwell of the house.
It has been established that the fire started in the cellar of the 110-year-old corner building in a rundown neighbourhood.
The mass-circulation Bild newspaper reported Thursday that a slow- burning fire had started under the second and third steps in the cellar, but that it remained unclear how this had happened.
According to the Bild report, the investigators, who include officials flown in by the Turkish government to assist with the probe, had ruled out technical defect as the cause.
Arson was also seen as increasingly unlikely, as no traces of fire accelerants had been found in the house.
Bild said the Turkish experts had concurred with the findings of their German counterparts.
The fire, which broke out during a Sunday carnival procession in the city on February 3, provoked strong feelings among Germany's 2.4- million-strong Turkish community.
A post-mortem of the victims, among them five children and a pregnant woman, showed eight had died from smoke inhalation. Another woman leaped to her death from an upper floor trying to escape the flames.
Turkish newspapers fuelled rumours of arson, reviving memories of the deaths of five Turks in the city of Solingen in 1993 after a fire had been deliberately started in their home. The previous year three Turkish women were killed in another arson attack.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Ludwigshafen days afterwards, and his visit was dominated by the fire and difficulties in relations between Germans and Turks.
A post-mortem of the victims, among them five children and a pregnant woman, showed eight had died from smoke inhalation. Another woman leaped to her death from an upper floor trying to escape the flames.
Thousands attended an open-air memorial service for the deceased, and Turks flocked to hear Erdogan speak at a subsequent rally in Cologne.