According to the Berlin public prosecutor’s office, the right-wing extremist conspiracy narrator Attila Hildmann, who is wanted with an arrest warrant, will not be extradited from Turkey. This was communicated to the public prosecutor’s office by the Federal Office of Justice, said authority spokesman Sebastian Büchner on Thursday of the German Press Agency on request. The Turkish embassy informed Germany that Hildmann had Turkish citizenship and would therefore not be extradited.
The public prosecutor’s office in Berlin has long been investigating Hildmann, who describes himself as “ultra-right” and a conspiracy preacher. It’s about hate speech, the suspicion of public incitement to commit crimes and resistance to law enforcement officials. The former author of vegan cookbooks had been attracting attention on the Telegram messenger service since the first months of the corona pandemic with his increasingly blatant hatred of Jews.
“As long as he’s in Turkey, we can’t get close to him”
Hildmann has been on the run since the end of December 2020 and is hiding in Turkey. There is an international arrest warrant against him. This will remain, said Büchner. “As long as he’s in Turkey, we can’t get to him,” said the spokesman. According to the public prosecutor’s office, the 41-year-old has been provided with internal information about the investigation against him from within his own ranks.
The authority accuses two sisters of violating official secrets. Among other things, the ex-employees of the general public prosecutor’s office and the public prosecutor’s office are said to have informed him about the arrest warrant against him in February 2021. The 33 and 35-year-old women are to be sentenced to fines of 2,700 (180 daily rates of 15 euros each) and 3,500 euros (70 daily rates of 50 euros each) by penal order – i.e. without a hearing – the public prosecutor announced on Monday.
Initially, the authorities assumed that Hildmann also had a Turkish passport and that the arrest warrant could therefore not be enforced. But then doubts arose. According to their own statements, the public prosecutor’s office has been assuming for about a year that Hildmann only has German citizenship. This was the result of inquiries with the Turkish authorities and further investigations, for example by the Federal Criminal Police Office, it said last October.
The current message from Turkey leaves questions. “We don’t know how the opposite information came about,” said Büchner on Thursday. The cook was born in West Berlin to Turkish parents, but grew up with German adoptive parents.