2 yıl önce

German ex-soldier who posed as refugee sent to jail over far-right plot

The court found that the former soldier darkened his skin with makeup to pose as a penniless refugee with plans to use the arms he had taken from the German army to carry out an attack.

AFP

Franco Albrecht repeatedly expressed anti-Semitic, racist and hard nationalist views before the court during his trial and accused then-chancellor Angela Merkel of failing to uphold the constitution by welcoming the refugees.

A German court has sentenced a former soldier to five and a half years in prison for plotting a far-right attack on senior politicians while posing as a Syrian refugee.

"The accused is guilty of planning a serious act of violence endangering the state," presiding judge Christoph Koller said on Friday at the end of a long-delayed trial.

Defendant Franco Albrecht, a 33-year-old father of three, had been in the dock before the regional superior court in the western city of Frankfurt since May 2021.

Koller said Albrecht harboured "right-wing extremist and racist-nationalist views that hardened over several years".

The defendant saw leading public figures as responsible for a welcoming stance toward refugees that he believed would lead to the "replacement of the German nation".

The Bundeswehr lieutenant was found to have cited cabinet ministers, MPs and a prominent Jewish human rights activist among his potential targets.

Prosecutors had described the case as the first in the country's post-war history in which a member of the armed forces was accused of planning a terrorist attack.

Nazi-era pistol

Albrecht told the court he deceived authorities at the height of the 2015-16 migrant influx, in which more than one million asylum seekers entered Germany.

He darkened his skin with makeup to pose as a penniless refugee and hoodwinked immigration officials for 15 months, despite speaking no Arabic.

"Neither Arabic nor details about my story were necessary," Albrecht testified, describing his conversations with immigration authorities.

He was arrested in 2017 while trying to retrieve a Nazi-era pistol he had hidden in a toilet at Vienna's international airport, and his fraud was discovered when his fingerprints matched two separate identities.

The court found that Albrecht planned to use both the pistol and other weapons and explosives he had taken from the German army in order to carry out an attack.

Soon after his arrest, then defence minister Ursula von der Leyen, now European Commission chief, said Albrecht's case pointed to a much larger "attitude problem" in the German military.

Albrecht had been free on bail as his trial began but was taken back into custody in February of this year when he was found with Nazi memorabilia and further weapons in his possession, including five machetes under his mattress.

Koller said three months already served would count against the sentence.