German court sentences ex-soldier to 5 and a half years for far-right terror plot
Prosecutors say Franco Albrecht, 33, is first serviceman in post-war history convicted of attempting terrorist attack
FRANKFURT, Germany (AFP) — A German court on Friday 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 long-delayed trial shone a spotlight on neo-Nazi sympathies in the ranks of the German military and the effectiveness of the security services in standing up to right-wing extremism — described by the interior minister as the biggest threat facing the country.
“The accused is guilty of planning a serious act of violence endangering the state,” presiding judge Christoph Koller said.
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.
The Bundeswehr lieutenant was found to have cited cabinet ministers, MPs and a prominent Jewish human rights activist among his potential targets.
Koller said Albrecht harbored “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.”
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, who has a full beard and wears his long hair tied in a ponytail, 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.
The soldier, the son of a German mother and an estranged Italian immigrant father, posed as a Christian fruit seller from Damascus called David Benjamin.
“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.
Soon after his arrest, then defense minister Ursula von der Leyen, now European Commission chief, said Albrecht’s case pointed to a much larger “attitude problem” in the German military.
Von der Leyen’s successor Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer ordered the partial dissolution of the KSK commando force in 2020 after revelations that some of its members harbored neo-Nazi sympathies.
Five machetes
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.
But prosecutors during the trial backed away for lack of evidence from an accusation that he plotted to use his false refugee identity to pin the crime on a Syrian.
Albrecht’s lawyers had called for a suspended sentence based solely on weapons law violations, while prosecutors demanded jail time of six years and three months.
Albrecht, who repeatedly expressed anti-Semitic, racist, and hard nationalist views before the court during his trial, testified that then-chancellor Angela Merkel had failed to uphold the constitution by welcoming the refugees.
Investigations showed he owned a copy of Adolf Hitler’s book “Mein Kampf” and stated that immigration was a form of “genocide.”
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.
