Ludwigshafen, Germany  - German prosecutors closed the file Wednesday on a building fire that killed nine Turkish Alawite people in Germany, saying they were convinced it had been an accident.

Many Turkish people have expressed a feeling that the February 3 fire may have been a cleverly disguised racist attack.

But prosecutors said they had "almost certainly" ruled out arson. The fire had begun under the staircase of the multistoreyed apartment block in the factory town of Ludwigshafen, south of Frankfurt.

No technical defect was found in the building, so the fire must have been caused by some sort of "negligent behaviour."

The inquiry, assisted by police officers from Turkey, had never uncovered the fire cause, but "there are no lines of inquiry left," the prosecutors said. Scientists checked the rundown, century-old building in vain for any traces of flammable liquid.

The victims, all women and children, were trapped on upper storeys where they had been watching a carnival parade in the street below.

The prosecutors said they followed up 200 clues and interviewed 120 witnesses. If any new evidence emerged, the inquiry would be re-opened.

Germany's Turkish minority has been haunted since the early 1990s by the nightmare of homicidal racists setting fire to their homes at night.

In 1992, a 51-year-old Turkish woman and two Turkish girls were killed in an arson attack in the northern town of Moelln. In 1993, five women were killed in Solingen in such a fire. The right-wing attackers were punished in both cases.

The Ludwigshafen blaze has been a talking point for months in Turkey and among Turkish people in Europe, with many fearing that families face a renewed risk of reckless arson attacks on homes.

A post-mortem of the victims, among them five children and a pregnant woman, showed eight had died from smoke inhalation. Another woman leaped to her death trying to escape the flames. (dpa)