2024-03-03 03:09:47
The attacker has already been sentenced to the maximum sentence for the racist and anti-Semitic attack in Halle. Now he has received another punishment.
The Halle attacker was sentenced to seven years in prison for taking hostages in Burg prison. The Stendal regional court ruled that he was guilty of taking hostages, carrying a firearm without permission and manufacturing a firearm. The 32-year-old also has to pay compensation for pain and suffering to two correctional officers he brought into his control and loss of earnings to one of them. The verdict is not yet legally binding.
Because of the racist and anti-Semitic attack near the synagogue in Halle, 32-year-old Stephan Balliet was sentenced to life imprisonment followed by preventive detention in 2020. The new ruling will therefore initially have no practical impact.
On October 9, 2019, the highest Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur, he tried to storm the synagogue in Halle and cause a massacre. When he failed, he murdered two people near the synagogue.
Judge: Defendant is a severely mentally disturbed person
The defendant followed the reasons for the verdict carefully. He seemed largely emotionless, but at times he had a smile on his face. Because he is considered dangerous, four masked special law enforcement officers sat behind him. The trial took place in Magdeburg in a high-security hall.
The presiding judge Simone Henze-von Staden spoke of considerable criminal energy on the part of the defendant, who had made a shooting device out of various everyday objects while in custody. One after the other he took two servants hostage. When he was supposed to be locked in his cell for the night on December 12, 2022, he demanded that a servant open doors and gates to freedom for him. The prisoner was known to be dangerous and had threatened to shoot. He also counted down in the countdown and fired a warning shot. He finally stopped the crime when it became clear that the gates to freedom would not open after all.
In her verdict on Tuesday, the presiding judge referred to a report that concluded that the 32-year-old was a severely mentally disturbed person. According to the judge, he showed a lack of empathy during the trial and was simply more interested in the prison’s camera recordings. He also made it clear that he had not given up his goal of achieving freedom.
Compensation for the hostages
The two hostages were not physically injured. But they suffered psychological damage, said the presiding judge. One hostage will receive 8,000 euros in compensation, the other 15,000 euros and 2,262 euros in lost earnings. The presiding judge emphasized that the two men were not responsible for the hostage-taking.
In the trial, the Naumburg Public Prosecutor’s Office had demanded a nine-year prison sentence for the 32-year-old and subsequent preventive detention. In his plea, the defense attorney refrained from demanding a sentence. In its ruling on Tuesday, the court did not impose preventive detention.
Preventive detention from a previous judgment
The defendant is in indefinite detention anyway; subsequent preventive detention was already ordered in the first judgment. The general public’s need for security was thus met. In preventive detention, criminals who are still classified as dangerous are given more space and greater freedom than in prison. However, society continues to be protected from them.
Balliet will now be held in a prison in Thuringia. Immediately after the verdict, the Saxony-Anhalt prison system carried out a security transfer of the 32-year-old to the Tonna correctional facility in the Gotha district, as the Ministry of Justice in Magdeburg announced.
After the hostage-taking he was held in various prisons. Shortly after the crime, he was flown from the Burg JVA to Augsburg, Bavaria, and in June 2023 he was transferred to the Wolfenbüttel JVA. Shortly before the trial began, the 32-year-old was taken back to Saxony-Anhalt to the Raßnitz youth center. From there he was flown to Magdeburg for the four days of negotiations.
In prison, Balliet is said to have quiet phases in which the 32-year-old doesn’t speak and hardly moves, alternating with sudden outbursts. There should be virtually no communication between the prisoner and prison staff, psychiatrists, social workers and doctors. He is considered incapable of treatment and not willing to receive treatment.