German NPD mails immigrant politicians go-home tips

BERLIN (Reuters) - German police said Tuesday they are investigating the leader of the far-right NPD party after it sent politicians from immigrant backgrounds letters telling them to go home.

"We are investigating whether there is a suspicion of inciting racial hatred," said Martin Steltner, spokesman for the state prosecutor's office in Berlin.

The NPD's leader in Berlin, Joerg Haehnel, said prosecutors had been hasty to condemn the letters, sent to about 30 politicians with immigrant backgrounds at the weekend giving tips on how to leave the country.

"As part of a democracy we're entitled to say if something doesn't suit us in this country," said Haehnel, who has been fined previously for making anti-immigration comments.

Green party politician Oezcan Mutlu, who received one of the letters, described them to news channel N24 as an act of idiocy.

"I've lived here for decades," Mutlu said. "I've got no other citizenship than German ... Where am I meant to go?"

The NPD has been involved in a series of controversies in the run up to Germany's election Sunday.

Saturday, a court in the eastern state of Mecklenburg Vorpommern ordered the party to remove anti-Polish election posters. In August, the NPD called for a black politician in the eastern state of Thuringia to "go home."

The NPD wants to end parliamentary democracy and is described by Germany's domestic intelligence agency as racist, anti-Semitic and revisionist. It has about 7,000 members and some seats in the state parliament in the state of Saxony.

(Reporting by Caroline Copley; Editing by Janet Lawrence)