A German neo-Nazi went on trial on Tuesday for the murder of pro-refugee politician Walter Luebcke.
His killing in June 2019 shocked the country and highlighted the growing threat of right-wing extremism.
Federal prosecutors say the main suspect, 46-year-old Stephan Ernst, was motivated by ‘racism and xenophobia’ when he allegedly shot Luebcke in the head on June 1, 2019.
German neo-Nazi Stephan Ernst went on trial on Tuesday for the murder of pro-refugee politician Walter Luebcke
His killing in June 2019 shocked the country and highlighted the growing threat of right-wing extremism. Pictured: Luebcke in 2012
Ernst appeared in the dock at the higher regional court in Frankfurt alongside co-defendant Markus H. who is accused of helping Ernst to train with firearms – including the murder weapon.
Ernest was flanked by armed guards as he arrived in court.
The killing of Mr Luebcke is believed to be Germany’s first far-right political assassination since World War II.
Some people queued all night to get into the court, but seating is limited because of coronavirus social distancing measures.
Ernst appeared in the dock at the higher regional court in Frankfurt alongside co-defendant Markus H. who is accused of helping Ernst to train with firearms – including the murder weapon
Dozens of journalists had to watch proceedings from a separate room.
A spokesman for Luebcke’s family, Dirk Metz, told reporters it was ‘a difficult day’ for them.
‘The family wants to send a clear signal against hatred and violence’ by taking part in the trial, he said.
‘One cannot fall silent the face of such violence.’
Luebcke, 65, belonged to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU party and headed the Kassel regional council in the western state of Hesse.
He supported Merkel’s 2015 decision to open the country’s borders to refugees and spoke in favour of hosting asylum seekers in a local town.
Prosecutors believe Ernst and his accomplice attended a speech by Luebcke in October 2015 when the politician defended helping refugees and said anyone who did not agree with those values was ‘free to leave the country’.
The remark was widely shared online and turned Luebcke into a hate figure for the far right.
After the speech, Ernst ‘increasingly projected his hatred of foreigners’ on to Luebcke, prosecutors said in the indictment.
Following mass sexual assaults by migrants against women in Cologne on New Year’s Eve 2015 and a 2016 Islamist attack in the French city of Nice, Ernst allegedly began tracking Luebcke’s movements.
There were heavily armed police officers outside the court as the trial got underway
Ernest, pictured wearing as mask as he arrived in court, ‘increasingly projected his hatred of foreigners’ on to Luebcke, prosecutors said in the indictment
Between 2016 and 2018, prosecutors say he worked with Markus H. to improve his skill with firearms, and the two are said to have attended right-wing demonstrations together.
In the course of their investigations, prosecutors separately charged Ernst with attempted murder for allegedly stabbing an Iraqi asylum seeker in the back in 2016.
They also uncovered weapons and ammunition belonging to Ernst, including revolvers, pistols and a submachine gun.
Some people queued all night to get into the court, but seating is limited because of coronavirus social distancing measures
Although Ernst initially admitted killing Luebcke, he later retracted his confession and said Markus H. had pulled the trigger.
But prosecutors maintain that while the accomplice ‘accepted and supported’ the danger Ernst posed, he was not aware of concrete attack plans.
Ernst already had a conviction for an attempted 1993 bomb attack on an asylum home.
In 2009, German media say he took part in neo-Nazi clashes targeting a union demonstration.
But Ernst then slipped off the security services’ radar, fuelling criticism that German authorities were not taking the far-right threat seriously enough.
Although Ernst initially admitted killing Luebcke, he later retracted his confession and said Markus H. had pulled the trigger
German police came under fire years earlier for overlooking racist crimes after it emerged that a neo-Nazi terror cell, the National Socialist Underground, had killed 10 people, mainly immigrants, between 2000 in 2007.
Luebcke’s killing was followed by a shooting at a synagogue in Halle, eastern Germany, that left two dead in October 2019, while another gunman shot dead nine people of migrant origin in the central town of Hanau last February.
Several politicians have reported receiving far-right death threats in recent months, including Germany’s only black MP Karamba Diaby.
Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has since declared far-right extremism the ‘biggest security threat facing Germany’.
He has promised tougher security measures, including a crackdown on online hate speech.
Mr Luebcke was shot in the head at his home (pictured) in June last year