The Oberlanddesgericht Brandenburg has ordered the release of the former NPD politician Maik Schneider from remand. The complaint of the 31-year-old alleged arsonist was granted.
According to the "Märkischen Allgemeine", a court ruling said that the arrest warrant would be canceled because of several avoidable "judicial delays in the procedure, amounting to more than six months".
Schneider was sentenced to nine and a half years in prison for an arson attack on a planned refugee shelter in Nauen and other crimes in February 2017. This verdict had been overturned by the Federal Court of Justice because of the bias of a jury last year, and the trial had to be reopened.
Schneider was arrested in March 2016 and has been in custody for nearly three years. His lawyer Sven Oliver Milke had argued in his complaint last year, inter alia, that the delivery of the first sentence would have lasted almost six months. As a result, the appeal was disproportionately delayed. He also complained about a slow termination of the re-launched process, which started in October.