BERLIN (AP) – A far-right extremist in Germany was convicted on Thursday and sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a regional politician who advocated helping refugees – a hard-hitting death that shocked the country .
In the verdict against the 47-year-old Stephan Ernst, the court in Frankfurt took note of the ‘particular seriousness’ of the crime, which means that he will probably not be released after 15 years, as is typical under German law, the dpa news agency reported.
During his trial, Ernst acknowledged the shooting of Walter Luebcke, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party, who led the regional administration in the Kassel area of central Germany, on June 1, 2019 – although he presented three different versions of the events.
Luebcke was targeted because he was outspoken in favor of helping refugees. Prosecutors said Ernst attended a rally in 2015 in City Hall where the politician defended the German government’s decision to allow hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers into the country.
The court finds that Ernst ‘xenophobia on Dr. Luebcke projected. ‘
Ernst shot Luebcke on the porch of the politician and he died hours later.
Following the assassination of Luebcke and other attacks – including one at a synagogue on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of Judaism, in October 2019 – the German government warned that extremism in the far-right region posed a significant security threat to the country.
An accomplice who, according to prosecutors, was with Ernst at the scene of the crime, who was only identified as Markus H. due to German privacy laws, was convicted of weapons offenses and sentenced to 18 months probation.
H. was charged with aiding and abetting murder, but his lawyer argued that he was not involved and that he was only found guilty of the lesser charge.
Ernst was released in 2016 on separate charges of stabbing and seriously wounded to an Iraqi refugee. Pres. Judge Thomas Sagebiel said there were circumstances that referred to him as the offender, “but no solid evidence.”
“Today’s verdict encourages me and is at the same time a reminder to all of us – we will not allow our country to be destroyed by right – wing terrorists and their intellectual instigators,” said Armin Laschet, leader of Merkel’s party. .
Laschet said that “killing Walter Luebcke was not just a heinous, inhuman crime against an individual, but an attack on all of us.” He added that it was important to stand behind other local politicians who were exposed to ‘personal hostility’.