weapons procurer
NSU supporter Ralf Wohlleben has to serve the rest of his sentence
NSU supporter Ralf Wohlleben at his trial in 2016
© Peter Kneffel / DPA
The NSU trio’s suspected weapons procurer, Ralf Wohlleben, has to serve out the remainder of his sentence. The Federal Court of Justice refused to suspend his sentence on probation.
Ralf Wohlleben, who was finally convicted as a weapons procurer for the NSU, has to start his remaining prison sentence and serve it out until further notice. The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) refused to suspend the remaining detention on probation. Taking into account the security interests of the general public, “early release from prison cannot be justified,” the judges in Karlsruhe said on Tuesday. In six months, Wohlleben could submit a new application.
No probation for NSU supporters: Ralf Wohlleben has to serve out the remainder of his prison sentence
In July 2018, Wohlleben was sentenced to ten years in prison for being an accessory in the trial of the racially motivated murders by the “National Socialist Underground” (NSU) terrorist cell.
The Munich Higher Regional Court (OLG) had come to the conclusion that Wohlleben and an accomplice had obtained the pistol for the NSU terrorists Uwe Böhnhardt and Uwe Mundlos in 2000, with which they had murdered eight men of Turkish origin and one man of Greek origin in Germany until 2006. The BGH had confirmed this judgment in August 2021, making it final.
Wohlleben was released from custody a few days after the Munich verdict. At that point he had been in custody for more than six and a half years. This time will be counted towards the sentence to be served. If two-thirds of the sentence has been served, the remainder may be suspended. In the case of Wohlleben, this point had almost been reached at the time, with only eleven days to go. The Federal Public Prosecutor had therefore “temporarily refrained from summoning the convict to begin the sentence”, as the BGH announced, even after the judgment had become final.
Risk in “supporting foreign acts of violence” from the neo-Nazi scene
In a decision dated September 1, the Higher Regional Court of Munich rejected Wohlleben’s application to suspend the remaining sentence on probation. The BGH now rejected his immediate appeal against it.
“Because of the very high weight of the legal interests threatened by a possible recidivism”, “particularly strict requirements must be made here with regard to the expectation of future impunity”. The judges see the risk “not in their own acts of violence, but in the future, as inconspicuously as possible, supporting acts of violence by others” from the right-wing extremist and neo-Nazi scene.