A member of the KSK elite commando force has appeared in court, months after weapons, explosives and neo-Nazi materials were found at his property, near Leipzig. He confessed to using the equipment for training.
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Unrepentant neo-Nazi gunman Stephan Balliet was jailed for carrying out a terrorist attack on a synagogue after admitting he was motivated by anti-Semitism.
Balliet live-streamed the shooting on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, in Halle in eastern Germany in 2019.
Presiding judge Ursula Mertens described the attack, which killed two people, as cowardly when she announced the verdict on Monday.
Prosecutors said he aimed to kill as many of the 50 worshippers inside the synagogue as possible during the 30-minute rampage.
Only his poor aim, the unreliability of his homemade firearms and a bolted door prevented a massacre, the intended victims said. Judges at the Naumburg state court, which met in the state capital of Magdeburg for security and capacity reasons, found him “seriously culpable”.