There are new findings on the hostage-taking in the JVA Burg, in which the assassin from Halle took two employees into his power on Monday. The head of the institution, Ulrike Hagemann, reported on Wednesday evening in the legal committee of the Saxony-Anhalt state parliament that Stephan B. used an allegedly home-made object to threaten the officials and free himself. Hagemann said she saw a rolled sheet of paper that had been reinforced with a pencil. There was also said to be a piece of metal on it that looked like a hinge from a closet or a toilet seat.
Representatives of the Ministry of the Interior and the Attorney General’s Office said that it was now necessary to determine whether the object was suitable as a weapon or whether it was just a dummy. Facility director Hagemann said the threat was taken very seriously. Anything else would have been negligent. B. held the object “directly in front of an officer’s forehead,” said Hagemann. The officer knew that he was dealing with one of the most dangerous criminals in Germany, who was also very “imaginative”.
The head of the maximum security prison described the processes in detail. With the so-called night lock, the prisoner surprised a prison official and held the object in front of him. The prisoner said, “we’re going out now”. The officer feared for his life and went outside with him. A triggered alarm called other officials. Another servant opened a gate, then the prisoner got into the yard, where he took the second servant hostage. When B. was inattentive for a moment, other colleagues overwhelmed him. The head of the facility praised the behavior of the JVA officials when the hostages were taken.
In his attack in Halle he used self-made weapons
The assassin and hostage-taker had already been questioned by investigators on Tuesday. The German press agency learned this from security circles. It is not yet known whether the prisoner commented on the incident. “We are conducting intensive investigations,” said a spokesman for the State Criminal Police Office (LKA). The Halle assassin is currently being held in a specially secured cell in the JVA Burg. A relocation of the prisoner to another federal state is in the room. According to the Justice Department, this is standard procedure after such an incident. The assassin was sentenced to life imprisonment and subsequent preventive detention in December 2020 – the highest possible sentence in Germany.
Already in 2020, Stephan B. tried to break out of prison. At that time, a whole series of breakdowns in the JVA hall made it possible for the assassin to climb over a 3.40 meter high fence unnoticed and thus get into an adjacent prison building. There he was finally arrested while looking for exits and manhole covers through which he could escape.
Right-wing extremist Stephan B. tried to storm the synagogue in Halle on October 9, 2019, the highest Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur. When he was unable to get onto the premises, he murdered a 40-year-old passer-by in front of the synagogue and a 20-year-old in a nearby kebab shop. He injured other people while fleeing. The perpetrator had built his own weapons for the attack in Halle. Prison director Hagemann said that the inmates had a lot of time in prison and developed a lot of imagination about how they could convert and repurpose everyday objects. She stressed that the assassin’s and hostage-taker’s mail had been carefully checked. During visits, very close attention was paid to prevent the transfer of prohibited items.