Status: 02/16/2022 3:24 p.m
The process of threatening letters from the so-called “NSU 2.0” has begun in Frankfurt. The indictment contains no less than 85 counts. The alleged author made it clear right at the beginning how little he thought of the procedure.
Alexander Horst M. gets rid of his message before even a word has been said in the courtroom. The accused presented himself to the photographers who crowded in front of the prosecution this Wednesday “NSU 2.0” process with crossed arms and outstretched middle fingers.
The 54-year-old does not have to speak to make it clear that he opposes the process before the Frankfurt district court and the public that goes with it. He obviously has only one message: contempt.
Threatening letters to 24 victims
Contempt, or rather blind hatred, is said to have been the driving force behind the crimes that the prosecution accuses him of. Between August 2018 and March 2021, the unemployed IT technician is said to have sent no fewer than 116 threatening letters by email, fax or SMS to a total of 24 victims under the pseudonym “NSU 2.0”.
The abbreviation NSU obviously refers to the right-wing extremist cell National Socialist Underground.
The addressees were entertainers like the ZDF satirist Jan Böhmermann, politicians like the party leader of the left, Janine Wissler and above all the Frankfurt lawyer Seda Basay-Yildiz.
Basay-Yildiz made the threats public at the end of 2019which were not only directed against herself, but also against her family, especially her underage daughter, whose death the author described as particularly cruel.
The fact that the case attracted public attention was less due to the violent fantasies described in the messages than to an explosive detail: the anonymous writer apparently had access to non-public data on his victims.
A short time later it turned out that the data of Basay-Yildiz and other victims had been interrogated by police computers without any reason. There has long been speculation about possible right-wing networks in police authorities.
In the meantime, the public prosecutor’s office is convinced that Alexander Horst M. stole the data by posing as an official on the phone to police officers. However, evidence for this thesis is not yet available.
Threatened police officers with pistols
M. was finally arrested at his place of residence in Berlin in May 2021 after extensive investigations. The indictment against him comprises a total of 85 points, which are made up of significantly more individual offenses – some of which were committed as a single offense. The public prosecutor’s office accuses him of:
- 67 cases of insult
- 11 cases of coercion
- 23 cases of threat
- 4 cases of defamation of the memory of a deceased
- 41 cases of use of marks of unconstitutional symbols
There are also allegations of incitement to hatred, public incitement to commit crimes, possession of child and youth pornographic images and videos, as well as resistance to public officials and a violation of the Weapons Act. When he was arrested, Alexander Horst M. is said to have threatened the police officers who stormed his apartment with a pistol.
Violent fantasies with pornographic features
The reading of the extensive indictment took up the entire first day of the trial. Around three hours in total. Most of this was due to the extensive hate messages attributed to Alexander Horst M. In addition to threats against Basay-Yildiz and other victims, these also include bomb threats against courts and schools.
In almost all letters, the presumed author tries to give the impression that he is acting as the “leader” of an underground organization which, among other things, is also responsible for the assassination of Kassel’s district president Walter Lübcke.
It is characterized by language interspersed with the most vulgar, often sexualized insults. The threatened murder fantasies, which often and particularly cruelly attach themselves to the children of those affected, have almost pornographic traits. A brutal language brimming with blood, excrement and other excrement.
The picture is completed by numerous borrowings from Nazi language – for example when the author announces “special treatment” to the addressees of the letter before finally celebrating the Waffen-SS.
Highly motivated to speak out
Alexander Horst M. denies the allegations. A man who would not attract attention in normal life takes his place in the dock this Wednesday. A small person, with short hair that has turned the color of asphalt on the way to finally graying. Small eyes behind thick-rimmed glasses. In the functional jacket that he wears at the start of the trial, M. is reminiscent of a postman – but one would rather not receive any letters from him.
M. doesn’t say much on this day of the trial. If he does, you can clearly see the anger boiling inside him. When he is asked for his personal data at the beginning of the trial, he refuses to testify. When asked why, he snaps at the presiding judge: “Because it’s none of the press’s business.”
When the indictment is finally read, his own lawyer has to stop him from responding immediately. “I am now highly motivated to comment on the matter,” he lets the public know in the courtroom.
He’ll have to wait another day. His admission is not scheduled for Thursday.