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Trial of far-right German soldier gets under way
On May 20, the trial of Franco A., a key figure in the right-wing extremist network within Germany’s state apparatus, got underway in the Senate for State Protection at the Frankfurt Regional High Court.
The state prosecutor has accused the 32-year-old first lieutenant in the Bundeswehr (German Army) of preparing an attack that would have posed a serious threat to the state, i.e., a terrorist attack. The indictment charges that the defendant planned to carry out the attack while posing as a refugee.
Franco A. in an interview with RT Germany (screenshot)
German court sentences far-right Lübcke murderer: The fairytale of the lone wolf
The Frankfurt Regional High Court delivered the sentencing in the trial of the murder of Kassel district president Walter Lübcke. It followed the same pattern as the sentencing issued by the Munich Regional High Court two-and-a-half years ago in the trial of the far-right terrorist National Socialist Underground: the main defendant received the maximum possible sentence, his accomplice a mild warning, and the right-wing extremist terrorist networks behind the murder and deeply rooted in the state apparatus were covered up and ignored.
The court sentenced the 47-year-old neo-Nazi Stephan Ernst to life imprisonment because he shot the Christian Democrat politician Lübcke on June 2, 2019, on the terrace of his house. The judges also stressed the particular severity of his guilt, which virtually excludes the possibility of parole after 15 years. After the end of the sentence, the court can order an addi