German neo-Nazi on trial for pro-refugee politician’s murder admits to killing

FRANKFURT, Germany — A German neo-Nazi on trial over the murder of pro-refugee politician Walter Luebcke admits to the killing that has shocked the nation and highlighted the growing threat of right-wing extremism.

“I fired the shot,” Stephan Ernst, 46, tells the court of the killing in a statement read out by his defense.

Federal prosecutors have said Ernst was motivated by “racism and xenophobia” when he allegedly shot Luebcke in the head on June 1, 2019.

Luebcke’s killing is believed to be Germany’s first far-right political assassination since World War II.

Apologizing to the victim’s family, Ernst says he had carried out a “cowardly and cruel” act.

He insists that he did not act alone but along with co-defendant Markus Hartmann, who stands accused of helping him train with firearms — including the murder weapon.

“I know that what I and Hartmann did to you will always be inexcusable. What we did was wrong,” he tells the family in the statement.

“No one should die because he has another view,” says Ernst, adding that he had been “misled by wrong ideas.”

Luebcke belonged to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU party and headed the Kassel regional council in the western state of Hesse.

He supported Merkel’s 2015 decision to open the country’s borders to refugees, with more than one million arriving since then, and spoke in favor of hosting asylum seekers in a local town.

Prosecutors say Ernst and his accomplice attended a speech by Luebcke in October 2015 when the politician defended helping refugees, adding that anyone who did not agree with those values was “free to leave the country.”

— AFP