The National Socialist Underground (NSU) is once again under spotlight as a second investigation committee was set up by German parliament on crimes and connections of the gang involved in a string of racist murders, bombings as well as robberies.Parties joined forces for an in-depth probe into the gang whose crimes were allegedly overlooked by German intelligence services, which had prominent informants in far-right groups.The committee was inaugurated on Wednesday with a press conference. Norbert Lammert, president of the German parliament, said at the press conference the committee was jointly decided by ruling and opposition parties, pointing out that it showed the common concerns of all the parties regarding the NSU's activities. Clemens Binninger, the head of the new committee, said they would seek answers to the most pressing questions regarding the gang.Armin Schuster, a member of the committee from Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) said the previous committee had examined why security services failed to track the NSU while their committee would focus on the "rapid radicalization" of members of far-right movements. Schuster said they would also seek answers to questions if the NSU, a gang of three, acted alone in their crime spree or if there was a larger far-right network behind it.The committee will hold its first public hearing on Dec. 17 with the participation of police officials and intelligence officers as well as experts on far-right movements.The first committee established in 2012 had released a 1,357-page report after 16 months of investigation and the parliament had decided to set up a new committee due to more unanswered questions about the activities of the gang.The NSU, which is composed of two men and a woman, is accused of killing 10 people including eight German citizens of Turkish origin, a Greek man and a policewoman, as well as conducting bombs attacks and bank robberies between 2000 and 2007.Zschaepe stands trial as the only surviving gang member while four others are on trial on charges of aiding and abetting the gang members. Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt, other members of the gang, were found dead in an apparent suicide in a trailer in which they were hiding in 2011. Zschaepe, 40, had turned herself in after setting a house the gang stayed at for some time on fire, allegedly to destroy evidence.After the discovery of the NSU, it was revealed in the trial that the gang had connections to informants recruited by the German intelligence agency, which raised the question of whether the intelligence officials had knowledge of the gang's activities and deliberately ignored it.Lawyers for the Turkish victims of the attacks had complained earlier that the German state failed to shed light on the gang's "connections" to the German intelligence services.The trial on the NSU has also faced criticism for the little progress and lack of inquiry into intelligence's role in disregarding the gang's activities. The trial is already muddled with a dispute between Zschaepe and her lawyers who repeatedly sought to step down from defense duties. Zschaepe, who has kept her silence throughout the proceedings since the trial started two years ago, was expected to speak out for the first time earlier this year before the court adjourned the hearing. According to German media outlets, Zschaepe will speak in a hearing scheduled for Dec. 8.