Almost six years in prison for a German neo-Nazi for threatening messages

by time news

The defendant is brought into the courtroom for sentencing. / andreas arnold/efe

He signed with the initials of the terrorist organization NSU and said goodbye with a “Heil Hitler”

A 54-year-old German neo-Nazi has been sentenced this Thursday to five years and ten months in prison for sending dozens of threatening letters to people in public life, mostly women, signed with the initials “NSU 2.0”, in reference to the terrorist organization National Socialist Underground, and with the greeting “Heil Hitler”.

The Frankfurt High Court found Alexander M. guilty, among other charges, of death threats, incitement to commit a crime, offenses, attempted coercion, disturbance of public order and incitement to hatred. Between August 2018 and March 2021, the convicted person sent a total of 81 letters by email, SMS or fax to politicians, lawyers, journalists and prosecutors with threatening and insulting content.

The prosecutors in charge of the case had demanded a sentence of seven and a half years in jail for Alexander M., whom they also accused of making several bomb threats against the courts, although these charges could not be proven.

Before the announcement of the sentence, the defendant rejected all the charges and accused the prosecutors of basing their arguments on manipulations and lies in order to put him behind bars at all costs. Alexander M. acknowledged, however, during the trial that he had participated in an extreme right-wing group exchanging messages on the Darknet, which is why, he claimed, a good part of the messages sent to the victims appeared on his computer. of the.

Television presenters

Among the recipients of his messages are satirical TV show host Jan Böhmermann and talk show host Maybritt Illner, as well as cabaret artist Idil Baydar, all very popular in Germany.

The series of threatening letters began with the Frankfurt lawyer of Turkish origin Seda Basay Yuldiz, who defended the interests of several of the victims of the NSU commando, responsible for the murder of nine immigrants and a police officer, during the trial against Beate Tschäpe , sole survivor of the terrorist group, sentenced to life imprisonment in 2018.

His two commando colleagues, Uwe Böhnhardt and Uwe Mundlos, committed suicide in November 2011 when they were about to be arrested in the town of Eisenach. The wave of threatening letters from Alexander M. began a few weeks after the sentence against Tschäpe.

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