German neo-Nazi sent to male prison despite legal gender change

A German neo-Nazi provocateur who was slated to be sent to a women’s prison after having a legal gender change will instead be incarcerated with men, local authorities say.

Marla-Svenja Liebich — who used to go by the name of Sven before registering a new identity as a woman — has been accused of exploiting German laws on gender self-identification.

Liebich, who fled Germany after being convicted on charges including incitement to racial hatred and slander, was extradited yesterday from the Czech Republic to a women’s prison in the eastern German city of Chemnitz.

However, the facility’s management ultimately decided Liebich would serve the sentence in a men’s correctional facility, said a spokesman for the justice ministry in the eastern German state of Saxony.

Saxony’s justice minister, Constanze Geiert, praises the decision.

“Tricks, deceptions and games never succeed within the rule of law. It is fortunate that the correctional facility acted swiftly to clarify the situation and refused to play along with staged theatrics,” Geiert says in a statement.

She says the move “prioritized the safety of women in the Chemnitz correctional system.”