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The murderer of the Kassel District President Walter Lübcke (CDU), Stephan Ernst, has been sentenced to life imprisonment.

The higher regional court (OLG) Frankfurt also determined the particular gravity of the guilt on Thursday.

This means that a release from prison after 15 years is as good as impossible.

The court reserved a subsequent preventive detention.

Stephan Ernst shot the politician Lübcke on his terrace in the Kassel district on the night of June 2, 2019.

According to the federal prosecutor, the 47-year-old had a right-wing extremist, xenophobic motive.

The trigger is said to have been statements by Lübcke, who defended the admission of refugees in 2015.

Ernst had repeatedly confessed to the crime - but in three different versions.

He last incriminated co-defendant Markus H., who had been at the scene.

H. himself had not commented.

His lawyers had denied that the man, known as a right-wing extremist, was involved and demanded an acquittal.

First right-wing extremist murder of a politician

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The OLG sentenced H. on Thursday to a suspended sentence of one year and six months for violating the weapons law.

Originally he was charged with an accessory to murder.

The Lübckes family - his wife and two sons - were among the co-plaintiffs in the 44-day trial.

The act is considered the first right-wing extremist murder of a politician in the Federal Republic.

Due to the corona pandemic, the process took place under strict hygiene requirements.

Lübcke's family was very disappointed with the verdict.

In particular, H.'s acquittal from the accusation of complicity in murder was "incomprehensible and difficult to cope with," said their spokesman, Dirk Metz, on Thursday.

In addition, “central questions about the course of the crime” remained open.

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"The remaining uncertainty as to how the last moments before the terrible act went is very painful," the statement said.

The family will still not operate a "court scolding".

Instead, she remembers that Lübcke “stood up for the rule of law and an independent judiciary for his entire life”.

That also applied “when it was uncomfortable”.

The family has not yet made a decision on possible legal remedies against the judgment.

You will decide on it "in peace", said their spokesman.

First of all, she wanted to "let the day sink in".

The month-long trial in the face of the accused was a "time of high emotional stress" for them.

Nevertheless, she is convinced that she has “taken the right path” by participating in the procedure.

The Federal Prosecutor General, on the other hand, has already decided that he wants to have parts of the judgment reviewed by the Federal Court of Justice.

The representative of the Federal Prosecutor's Office, Dieter Kilmer, announced on Thursday in Frankfurt that he would go into revision.

It concerns the acquittal of Stephan Ernst in the case of the knife attack on an Iraqi refugee and the acquittal for the co-defendant Markus H. of complicity in the Lübcke murder.

You see H. as an accomplice in the murder, said Kilmer.