The trial of a German neo-Nazi opened last June delivered its verdict.

Stephan Ernst, who shot Walter Lübcke in the head at his home, was sentenced Thursday, January 28 by a Frankfurt court to life imprisonment for the murder of the elected member of the conservative CDU party, favorable to the reception of migrants.

His sentence is accompanied by a safety period of 15 years.

His accomplice, for his part, received a suspended sentence of one year and six months in prison.

This trial has historical significance because it is the first murder of an elected official since 1945 attributed to a far-right sympathizer.

"The murder conviction leaves no room for doubt about the guilt" of Stephan Ernst, 47, explained the president of the Frankfurt court, Thomas Sagebiel, during the delivery of the verdict.

"We know that we can hardly measure your loss and that the trial has been very painful for you. Our task was to conduct a fair process and to judge without regard to personal interests," he added to the intention of the victim's family.

On the night of June 2, 2019, Walter Lübcke, a 65-year-old elected official, smokes a cigarette on the terrace of his house in Kassel in Hesse, when he is killed with a bullet in the head shot almost at point blank range by Stephan Ernst.

Known to authorities since the 1980s

After two weeks of investigation, Stephan Ernst, close to the neo-Nazi movement, is arrested.

He also accuses an alleged accomplice, Markus Hartmann, also on trial in this trial which began on June 16.

Stephan Ernst has apologized to the family of the victim for this murder "cruel and cowardly" but aimed at a "political objective", according to his lawyer.

His alleged accomplice is accused 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.

He was eventually given a one year and six month suspended sentence for prohibited possession of weapons.

According to the prosecution, the two suspects had attended together, ulcerated, a public meeting 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 2017 parliamentary elections. .

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 specter of "brown terrorism" in Germany

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 parliament of Hesse will conduct investigations into the dysfunctions and failures of the investigation.

The murder of Walter Lübcke has awakened the specter of "brown" terrorism in the country.

Underestimated in the 2000s by the authorities despite the murders at the time of eight Turkish immigrants, a Greek and a German policewoman by a small neo-Nazi group, NSU, the threat is perceived today as a crucial challenge for internal security.

In December, a far-right sympathizer was sentenced to life imprisonment for almost committing a massacre on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur at a synagogue in Halle before killing a passerby and a man in a restaurant frequented by immigrants.

In February 2020, a man also killed nine people of foreign origin in two bars in Hanau, near Frankfurt, before committing suicide.

Finally on Wednesday, German justice paved the way for the trial of a far-right sympathizer suspected of having considered attacking elected officials and Muslims.

With AFP

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