The accused artist was acquitted in the trial surrounding a graffiti that is said to show Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) in a kind of SS uniform. This was decided by the Bavarian Supreme Regional Court, as a court spokeswoman said on Wednesday in Nuremberg. The exact reasons for the verdict were initially not known.
The Nuremberg district court had previously sentenced the artist to a fine for using the symbols of unconstitutional organizations and insulting him. The Nuremberg regional court confirmed the verdict in July 2023. The 40-year-old with the stage name Fabian Zolar appealed against this. The man sprayed the graffiti on a barn in the south of Nuremberg in the summer of 2022.
The regional court was convinced that Söder could be seen in a kind of SS uniform in the upper half, including two scenes in which people resembling police officers commit violence. In court, the man had always denied that his graffiti depicted the Prime Minister.
According to him, the trigger for the graffiti was a police operation in front of the barn in the summer of 2022, during which he experienced police violence. The proceedings got rolling because the Bavarian State Chancellery filed a criminal complaint after the graffiti became known.