Trial in Magdeburg
After being taken hostage in prison: verdict against Halle attacker
Judicial officers lead the defendant into the courtroom in Magdeburg. photo
© Klaus-Dietmar Gabbert/dpa
The attacker has already been sentenced to the maximum sentence for the racist and anti-Semitic attack in Halle. Now he has received another punishment.
At the start of the trial, the defendant confessed to having taken prison staff hostage with a self-made weapon on December 12, 2022 in order to gain freedom. The plan failed.
In the trial, the Naumburg Public Prosecutor’s Office had demanded a nine-year prison sentence for the 32-year-old and subsequent preventive detention. In his plea, the defense attorney refrained from demanding a sentence. The responsible Stendal regional court heard the case in a high-security room in Magdeburg.
In her verdict, presiding judge Simone Henze-von Staden referred to a report that concluded that the 32-year-old was a severely mentally disturbed person. According to the judge, he showed a lack of empathy during the trial and was simply more interested in the prison’s camera recordings.
Balliet tried to storm the synagogue in Halle and cause a massacre on October 9, 2019, the highest Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur. When he failed, he murdered two people near the synagogue.