A German court has sentenced far-right Stephan Ernst to life imprisonment on Thursday for the 2019 murder of politician Walter Lübcke, who supported the reception of refugees and whose death shocked the European country.
Ernst, 47, confessed his guilt at first, but later reversed his confession and finally, in a new statement, accused his alleged accomplice, Markus H., of having accidentally shot Lübcke.
However, the court has ruled that Ernst shot the politician in the head on the terrace of his home, while sentencing the second defendant to a suspended sentence of one year and six months in jail for violation of the gun law. .
As head of the local government of the Kassel district, Lübcke had managed to become a kind of intermediate authority between the state and the municipalities that strongly defended the reception of refugees in the midst of the 2015 crisis.
The trigger for the crime would have been a town hall meeting that Ernst attended. “Values must be defended, and anyone who does not represent them can leave this country at any time if they do not agree, that is the freedom of every German,” said Lübcke.
Ernst had already drawn attention for his contacts with the extreme right, but in recent years the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s internal intelligence service, had not kept him under observation.