Cologne, 06 July 2026
Cologne prosecutors have provisionally closed their investigation into an arson attack on the mouse statue outside the WDR building in Cologne, citing an absence of further leads nearly a year after the fire.
The Cologne public prosecutor's office confirmed the provisional closure to the Deutsche Presse-Agentur, a WDR report said. "Es gibt keine Spuren mehr, denen man aktuell nachgehen könnte," a spokesman said, according to WDR 2 and WDR Aktuell, which reported the development on 6 July 2026 at 5:30 a.m. The decision comes almost exactly one year after the statue, the well-known figure from the long-running German children's programme "Sendung mit der Maus," was set on fire in the night leading to 26 July 2025.