ERKELENZ/AACHEN (dpa-AFX) - There will be no criminal consequences for the two tunnel squatters from Lützerath: As the Aachen police said on request, RWE has not filed charges against the men. The police therefore do not know the identity of the activists, who called themselves "Pinky" and "Brain". The tunnel, in which the two had held out for days, has since been sealed, according to information from the Deutsche Presse-Agentur. It will disappear in the course of lignite mining.

Der Spiegel" had reported, with reference to an internal police document, that RWE had promised the activists that it would not press charges against them - if they came out of the tunnel voluntarily. Accordingly, the tunnel occupants had demanded to be allowed to leave Lützerath masked - without the police taking their personal details and fingerprints. This is what happened in the end.

Lützerath had been cleared in a large-scale police operation lasting several days against the resistance of hundreds of climate activists who had barricaded themselves there. The energy company RWE wants to mine lignite there.

The Aachen police had presented on Wednesday the final balance to the employment in Lützerath. 372 people had left the village "peacefully and voluntarily". From further 159, which were brought out, "the identity had to be determined in the context of police measures". In total, 531 activists had been in Lützerath at the start of the eviction.

Meanwhile, the AfD has submitted a small question to the Düsseldorf state parliament on the costs of the police operation. The state government has four weeks to respond./ola/DP/stw