A German neo-Nazi confessed this Wednesday during his trial to have killed an elected regional defender of the cause of migrants, a murder which has raised awareness of the growing threat of far-right violence in the country.
"I shot at short distance" on Walter Lübcke, admitted Stephan Ernst, 46, according to a statement read by his lawyer before the Frankfurt District Court. He is accused by the German Federal Prosecutor's Office, in charge of terrorism affairs, of having projected on the elected official "his xenophobic hatred" and of having killed him at his home in Cassel with a bullet in the head on June 1 2019.
A first since World War II
Stephan Ernst had initially confessed to the murder, before retracting and bringing charges against his alleged accomplice Markus Hartmann, also on trial in this trial which began on June 16. The prosecution also accuses him of “aggravated murder” and “aggravated attempted murder” with knives against an Iraqi refugee in 2016, which he however refuted on Wednesday. He faces life imprisonment.
This is the first time since World War II that a case of this type has been tried in the country. In his statement, Stephan Ernst said he had acted with his accomplice Markus Hartmann, present with him at the time of the murder. He apologized to the family of the chosen one. "I know, what Hartmann and I have done will forever be inexcusable." “It was cruel and cowardly,” he admitted, “but I can't change anything about it”. “No one should die because they have another opinion,” he said again.
His alleged accomplice is accused by the prosecution of having trained him to shoot in the forest, "including with the weapon used" for the murder, without being "aware of the real plans" of Stephan Ernst.
Police errors
The two suspects also, according to investigators, attended a public meeting together during which Walter Lübcke had supported the generous migration policy decided by Chancellor Angela Merkel. More than a million refugees were welcomed in Germany between 2015 and 2016. In the process, the far-right party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), made a sensational entry into parliament during the general elections of 2017.
Stephan Ernst had been known to authorities since the late 1980s as a potentially violent neo-Nazi sympathizer. As early as 1993, he was suspected of having planned a bomb attack against a hostel for asylum seekers. In 2009, he participated in a race riot in Dortmund. Despite this busy past, the intelligence services had stopped monitoring him in recent years.
The investigation revealed another police error, already often accused in the past of appeasing neo-Nazis: they did not report to the authority issuing permits to carry weapons that the alleged accomplice was a still active member of the ultra-right. This enabled him to obtain pistols and rifles. The murder of Walter Lübcke, member of Angela Merkel's conservative party, has awakened the specter of "brown" terrorism in the country.
World
Germany: The most radical fringe of the far right under surveillance
World
Germany: "Very high" far-right threat and reinforced police presence
- World
- Neonazi
- Terrorism
- Far right
- Germany