Ferat Kocak draws conclusions after meeting with “Zeit” and gives up Interior Committee seat

The Berlin left-wing MP Ferat Kocak had promised “transparency” after his contacts with the extended Arab Remmo family and the anti-Israel activist Ibrahim Ibrahim became known. However, his descriptions in a meeting with a reporter from “Zeit” raise numerous new questions. In particular, one scene described by the newspaper raises doubts that Kocak has now distanced himself from the people in question.

This has apparently also become clear to Kocak: “By fully disclosing the communication, I am making it transparent that I have neither granted nor received advantages from people who are considered to have connections to organized crime,” Kocak posted on Wednesday evening. Nevertheless, he draws conclusions: he gives up his seat on the Interior Committee entirely.

"In the past few weeks there has been a lot of discussion about me personally. Parts of this debate were hurtful, discriminatory and characterized by insinuations," it says. This means that colleagues' parliamentary work is not possible.

According to "Zeit", a reporter from the newspaper had previously been able to view the chat logs between him and members of the Remmo clan during a meeting with Kocak, some of which had become public after the Left's election party. However, the author emphasizes that it is not possible to verify whether other messages have already been deleted. In any case, Kocak assures that he has not changed the course of the message.

The member of the Bundestag explains how contacts with members of the Remmo family came about. The impetus for this was a call on social media at the beginning of 2026. “Does anyone have a smartphone to give away?” he wrote on social media, soliciting smartphone donations for young people from an Antifa group. Their cell phones had previously been confiscated by the police.

According to Die Zeit, Firas Remmo, son of Issa Remmo, also got in touch. Kocak accepted his offer, the newspaper describes, citing chats viewed between the clan member and the member of the Bundestag. “Brother, no matter what you need, no matter what I can do for you, let me know,” Remmo finally wrote. Kocak sent the address of his office and agreed to pick up the device personally. After Remmo said his father was looking forward to meeting him, Kocak replied: “Greet respectfully back to your father.” Finally there was a personal meeting.

Kocak once again stated in “Zeit” – as in other media – that he did not know who he was communicating with: “It’s stupid of me that I didn’t look who it was,” he is quoted as saying.

In response to the "Zeit" reporter's objection that he actually had to know the players in the Berlin clan scene, since he was a member of the Bundestag's Interior Committee, where clan crime was a recurring topic, Kocak replied: "I don't need to know these people to do this work." He also said, “I don’t need to know who the bad guys are.”

The Remmo family repeatedly made headlines and was involved, among other things, in the theft of the gold coin from the Bode Museum in Berlin and in the break-in at the Green Vault in Dresden. Both cases were widely reported nationwide. When the reporter asked whether it was really possible that he did not know Firas Remmo, the left-wing politician replied, according to “Zeit”: “I swear on everything.” He only had one intention: “I just wanted to pick up this cell phone.”

Kocak calls meeting with Remmo “overwhelming”

According to his own account, Kocak only noticed when he met in person that he had ended up in the Remmo family's environment. When he met Issa Remmo in an office, he asked himself: "Do I run out? Do I say: I don't want to have anything to do with you?" Die Zeit quoted him as saying. The situation was “overwhelming” for him. Issa Remmo praised him for his work and explained that the Remmos also had Kurdish roots like Kocak's family. According to his own statements, he managed to end the conversation “respectfully” after ten to 15 minutes.

However, it remains unclear why contact was not broken off after the smartphone was handed over. Among other things, Kocak later sent Firas Remmo a video of a Bundestag speech and asked him to distribute it further. “Brother, help me (...) tell all your people to share this,” he wrote, according to “Zeit”. When asked why he sought contact again after the meeting, Kocak said in retrospect: “Maybe that was a mistake.”

Questions also arise about Kocak's later invitation to a Remmo family wedding. However, the Bundestag member did not go because he wanted to build distance from the Remmos, it is said. However, he said goodbye in a voice message with the words: "I kiss your heart, brother. Greetings to the family." He didn't make a hard break with the family: "That's not my style. I can't manage it either," Kocak told "Zeit".

This also appears to be the case with anti-Israel activist Ibrahim Ibrahim. Ibrahim has been an open supporter of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) for years. The terrorist organization murdered Israelis in bomb attacks or plane hijackings.

He also showed up at the Neukölln Left's election party. Last year, Kocak and Ibrahim appeared together at a Left Party event in Neukölln. Nevertheless, Kocak explained in “Die Zeit” that he did not recognize Ibrahim at the election party. A young man asked him for a photo, and Ibrahim then stood there. “At that moment I didn’t connect Mr. Ibrahim’s name and face,” Kocak assured “Zeit.” “I didn’t recognize him.” There is no substantive distancing from Ibrahim in the conversation with “Zeit”.

Only in the posting on Wednesday evening did Kocak write: "I will consistently continue my work for a solidarity-based and safe society. For a society in which all people can lead a good, safe and affordable life - regardless of passport, origin, gender or wallet," the posting says. And further: “A society in which no one is excluded or left behind and in which social security and protection against racism, anti-Semitism and every form of misanthropy belong together.”

A strange scene at the end

A scene described by “Zeit” also leaves open the fact that Kocak has now been able to build up distance from members of the Remmo family. This is said to have happened after the conversation with Kocak. Accordingly, the member of the Bundestag was waiting in Neukölln on Monday evening for a photo opportunity with a photographer from the newspaper.

A strange man came up to him, said that someone wanted to talk to him, and held a cell phone in front of Kocak's face. Firas Remmo could be seen on the screen in a video call. According to “Zeit”, the photographer present confirmed the incident.

After Kocak's description, Remmo asked how he was doing. Kocak is said to have later explained that the strange man initially did not leave despite being asked to do so. The left-wing politician later described the encounter as unpleasant.

Volker Beck, President of the German-Israeli Society and former member of the Bundestag, commented on the scene on