‘I fired the shot’: German neo-Nazi on trial over politician murder admits to killing
- Stephan Ernst, 46, admitted during the trial at court in Frankfurt earlier today
- Pro-refugee politician Walter Luebcke was shot in the head on June 1, 2019
- His death highlighted the growing threat of right-wing extremism in the country
A German neo-Nazi on trial over the murder of pro-refugee politician Walter Luebcke has admitted to the killing.
‘I fired the shot,’ Stephan Ernst, 46, told the court in Frankfurt earlier today in a statement read out by his defence.
Federal prosecutors have said Ernst was motivated by ‘racism and xenophobia’ when he shot Luebcke in the head on June 1, 2019.
Stephan Ernst, 46, (pictured) has admitted to killing pro-refugee politician Walter Luebcke during his trial in Frankfurt earlier today
Apologising to the victim’s family, Ernst said he had carried out a ‘cowardly and cruel’ act.
He insisted that he did not act alone but along with co-defendant Markus Hartmann, who stands accused of helping him train with firearms – including the murder weapon.
‘I know that what I and Hartmann did to you will always be inexcusable. What we did was wrong,’ he told the family in the statement.
‘No one should die because he has another view,’ said Ernst, adding that he had been ‘misled by wrong ideas’.
The killing of Mr Luebcke (pictured in 2012) is believed to be Germany’s first far-right political assassination since World War II
Federal prosecutors have said Ernst (pictured being led away by officers earlier today) was motivated by ‘racism and xenophobia’ when he shot Luebcke in the head on June 1, 2019
The killing of Luebcke, which shocked the country and highlighted the growing threat of right-wing extremism, is believed to be Germany’s first far-right political assassination since World War II.
The 65-year-old 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 say Ernst and his accomplice attended a speech by Luebcke in October 2015 when the politician defended helping refugees, adding that 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.
Angered by mass sexual assaults by migrants against women in Cologne on New Year’s Eve 2015 and the 2016 terror attack in the French city of Nice, Ernst ‘began planning the murder in earnest’ and started tracking Luebcke’s movements, the indictment said.
Apologising to the victim’s family, Ernst said he had carried out a ‘cowardly and cruel’ act. Pictured: Photo of Walter Luebcke stands behind his coffin during the funeral service in Kassel, Germany, in 2019
Between 2016 and 2018, prosecutors say Ernst worked with Hartmann to improve his skill with firearms, and the two 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.
Ernst has a long criminal history and was known to police as a neo-Nazi sympathiser.
He was convicted of an attempted bomb attack on an asylum home in 1993.
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, leading to criticism that the authorities were not taking the far-right threat seriously enough.