By The Huffington Post News Editors

By Madeline Chambers
BERLIN, April 10 (Reuters) – German authorities said on Wednesday they had uncovered a network of far-right activists in prisons communicating by secret code.
Among the names on the network’s address list was that of a woman who goes on trial next week accused of a series of racially motivated murders.
Wednesday’s revelations are embarrassing for Germany, which has been shaken by charges that for decades its intelligence services bungled the monitoring of far-right groups.
The justice minister in the state of Hesse, Joerg-Uwe Hahn, demanded a thorough investigation and confirmed inmates’ cells had been searched and letters checked in the last few weeks.
“We don’t want to repeat the mistakes made by security authorities in relation to the crimes of the (neo-Nazi cell) the National Socialist Underground (NSU),” Hahn told Bild daily.
“We know that far-right criminals are trying to build up networks and new organisational structures from prisons. We will stop this,” he added.
A spokesman for prosecutors in Frankfurt confirmed they had opened an investigation but declined to give further details. It was unclear how far the network stretched across Germany.
The aim of the new network is to offer financial support to inmates and their families and to allow individuals to exchange political views, German media said.
Members communicated via code and hidden messages in letters and small advertisements in magazines.
“Prisons must not become a recruiting ground for neo-Nazis,” said lawmaker Ulla Jelpke of the small opposition Left party. “Nazis remain dangerous even when they are behind bars. That has now been made all too clear.”

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Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich praised the work of the Hesse government and said its justice minister was

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