The verdicts against the two accused in the Lübcke murder case remain in place. The Federal Court of Justice confirmed it after the prosecution and defense had appealed. This leaves one of the accused at large.
The verdict against the murderer of the Kassel district president Walter Lübcke is final. This was announced by the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in Karlsruhe. The Higher Regional Court (OLG) Frankfurt am Main had sentenced the right-wing extremist Stephan Ernst to life imprisonment in January 2021 and determined the particular gravity of the guilt. While an early release from prison after 15 years is legally possible, in practice it is virtually impossible.
The Higher Regional Court acquitted a co-accused for aiding and abetting. The BGH did not object to this either. The presiding judge of the third criminal senate, Jürgen Schäfer, spoke of an "error-free assessment of the evidence" by the OLG - both with regard to the guilty verdicts and the acquittals. The Higher Regional Court had considered it proven that the 48-year-old Ernst had killed the CDU politician Lübcke late in the evening on June 1, 2019 at home on his terrace at close range with a shot in the head. He had projected his xenophobia onto Lübcke since he had spoken out in favor of taking in refugees at a town meeting years earlier.
The OLG sentenced the co-defendant Markus H., a friend of Ernst from the right-wing scene, to a suspended sentence of one and a half years for a weapon offense - but not as accused of being an accessory to the murder of Lübcke. He was released in October 2020.
The family of the CDU politician and the federal prosecutor's office had primarily complained about this last decision of the Frankfurt court. From their point of view, the 46-year-old played a much more central role in the assassination. He practiced shooting with Ernst and ultimately strengthened his will to act. The survivors even consider him a direct accomplice. You and the federal prosecutor's office have therefore appealed. But the defendants also appealed. Ernst's lawyers, for example, objected to the reservation of preventive detention after imprisonment.
In addition to the Lübcke case, the proceedings also concerned an attack on an Iraqi asylum seeker. Someone attacked the man in early 2016 and stabbed him in the back. The federal prosecutor considers Ernst to be the perpetrator, but could not convince the OLG judges. The victim also appeared as a joint plaintiff.
