EThere is this one robbery in January 2019 on a sewer worker in Leipzig, which the federal prosecutor emphasized in their pleading on Wednesday before the Dresden Higher Regional Court. The act was “outstanding in the worst sense”, the physical and psychological consequences for the victim were devastating. The man suffered multiple skull fractures and still has a metal plate on the right side of his face to prevent the eye socket from slipping down. In addition, he had to take painkillers every day and had lost his job on top of that – and only because he was wearing “the wrong hat”. This cap with a logo of a clothing brand popular with right-wing extremists was the undoing of the man who was on his first day at the company.
The prosecution is convinced that Lina E. and her accomplices wanted to teach the man a lesson as a member of the far-right scene, which he is not. E., who is accused of being the ringleader of a left-wing extremist criminal organization, is said to have helped select the victim and then prevented colleagues who rushed to help the man, while her accomplices beat him with batons, among other things, so that the crime was “nearby.” of an attempted homicide”. Because of these and other six acts, in which a total of 15 people were injured, some seriously, the 28-year-old Lina E., who comes from Hesse and studied in Leipzig, and three men, also in their mid-twenties, from Leipzig, Berlin and Dresden originate, since September 2021 the process has been done.
After 92 days of hearings, the federal prosecutor is convinced that all of the accused were members of a criminal organization. They acted in a planned manner in order to achieve an overarching political goal by committing crimes together, namely to violently fight right-wing extremists as militant anti-fascists, said senior public prosecutor Alexandra Geilhorn.
Disparaging comments from relatives in the room
Not all of the accused were involved in all of the individual crimes, but that doesn’t matter. Because all four defendants had “fitted into an association supported by common political convictions”. They planned, trained and carried out targeted attacks on right-wing extremists and people they thought were right-wing extremists, revealing “an extraordinary level of criminal energy”. It was only due to coincidence that, despite the targeted use of force, especially against the victims’ heads and upper bodies, nothing worse happened.
The prosecution keeps coming back to the individual acts that took place in Saxony and Thuringia between August 2018 and the summer of 2020 and dissects the accused’s contributions to the crime – be it attacks on individuals or storming of known meeting places by right-wing extremists.
Lina E. has a special role to play here. For more than two years, she had a decisive and formative influence on the group, coordinating training, directly selecting victims, procuring the tools of the crime and gaining accomplices for robberies. “She was the driving and controlling force of the group” and showed “increased criminal energy”, said Geilhorn. You are dealing with “a particularly serious case of ringleadership”, which is why the prosecution demanded eight years in prison for Lina E., who had no previous convictions.
For the three men in the dock, two of whom have no previous convictions, the federal prosecutor’s office requested prison sentences of between two years and nine months and three years and nine months, in particular for membership in a criminal organization, joint grievous bodily harm, damage to property and breach of the peace. In the hall, where relatives and acquaintances of the accused follow every day of the trial, every sentence was greeted with indignation and disparaging remarks. Chief prosecutor Geilhorn also demanded that Lina E. be kept in custody because of the “very high risk of absconding”. There is still a broad supporter environment that approves of the actions of the accused and calls for further actions. There is a call within the left-wing extremist scene to cause property damage of one million euros for every year in prison that the accused are sentenced to.
In mid-April, the defense, which speaks of a “constructed accusation” and a “politicized process”, will give its closing speeches. The verdict is expected in mid-May.
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