The 47-year-old neo-Nazi Stephan E. was found guilty of the murder of regional governor Walter Lubcke on Thursday, bringing to an end Germany’s first trial for a political assassination since the 1970s. He was sentenced to life in prison.
Judge Thomas Sagebiel also acknowledged the “special gravity” of Stephan E.’s guilt, which will extend the time the neo-Nazi will have to spend in prison before he can be considered for parole.
For a life sentence in Germany, the minimum is 15 years, but in such circumstances Stephan E. is unlikely to be considered for parole for at least 22 years.
Expressing sympathy with Lubcke’s family, who were present in court as co-plaintiffs, the judge said he recognized that the trial would have been “difficult and painful” for them. But he said, “That did not change anything about our task, which was also difficult.”
The murder of Walter Lubcke brought new attention to the violent potential of Germany’s neo-Nazi scene and the failures of domestic intelligence agencies to keep track of violent extremists – despite running and paying several informants in the scene.
Lubcke had become a hate-figure for the far-right following a speech in 2015 defending the decision to take in refugees from the Syrian war. But, as the governor’s family complained during their plea as co-plaintiffs, he had been left unprotected by the intelligence agencies. He was shot dead on the porch of his home in June 2019.
Thursday’s verdict attracted an alliance of anti-racist and pro-democracy initiatives, who stood outside the court holding banners declaring their support for democratic values, which they say Lubcke died defending. Among them were children from a high school in Lubcke’s home town of Wolfhagen, which was named after the governor last year.
Accomplice charged with illegal gun possession
Stephan E.’s alleged accomplice, Markus H., another known neo-Nazi, was acquitted of accessory to murder, though he was convicted of an illegal gun possession charge.
Stephan E. had testified that Markus H., was present at the murder scene, and had made sarcastic remarks to the victim before E. fired the deadly shot.
But, though both the prosecution and Lubcke’s family considered this version of events true, the defendant’s testimony has been marred by contradictory accounts of the murder he gave earlier in the trial and on his arrest. At one point, he was apparently incited by a previous defense attorney to testify that Markus H. had pulled the trigger in a tussle with Lubcke.
Attempted murder of refugee ends in acquittal
Stephan E. was acquitted of the attempted murder of Iraqi refugee Ahmed I. in an incident in January 2016, when Ahmed I. was stabbed in the back by an unknown assailant outside the refugee shelter where he lived.
The neo-Nazi, who lived in the area and had a history of violent attacks on people of Arabic and Turkish background, had been questioned at the time, but was not arrested.
New evidence uncovered during the Lubcke murder investigation had led prosecutors to file charges over the 2016 stabbing. Most importantly, a knife was found in Stephan E.’s basement that had traces of DNA on it typical for the region that Ahmed I. was from.
The co-plaintiff’s lawyer Alexander Hoffmann has said that had Stephan E.’s home been searched in 2016, he would have been convicted and never had the opportunity to kill Lubcke.
Fears over far-right violence against politicians
Lubcke’s murder also threw a spotlight on the increasing danger faced by local politicians in Germany. Many have drawn parallels with the knife attack by a far-right extremist that Cologne’s mayor Henriette Reker only narrowly survived in 2015.
“Again and again, mayors have turned to me who fear for their families,” Edgar Franke, the German government’s commissioner for crime victims, said in a statement after Thursday’s verdict.
“The heart of democracy beats in the towns and municipalities. For that reason we must protect local politicians much better than we do up to now.”
