German police said on Friday they had opened a criminal investigation after a broadcaster published video of far-right protesters speaking approvingly of the murder of a politician.
The video, filmed at a rally in the eastern city of Dresden, came as polls showed the public is increasingly concerned at the threat of far-right violence after years when authorities’ focus has been on the risk from militant Islamists.
Participants in Monday’s anti-Islam Pegida rally told the film crew that Luebcke, an outspoken defender of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s 2015 decision to welcome over a million refugees, was a traitor to the nation.
WATCH: Italy rebuffs German migrant appeal as rescue boat docks at Lampedusa
On Friday, police said they were investigating a suspected case of praising a criminal act, a crime under German law.
Stephan Ernst stands accused of having shot Luebcke, president of the regional government of Kassel, point blank in the head. The government said he had confessed to the killing soon after being arrested in mid-June, however, the German far-right sympathizer has retracted his confession, his lawyer said on Tuesday.
Luebcke was a hate figure for the far-right because of his outspoken defence of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s 2015 decision to let in over a million refugees.
His killing triggered soul-searching over whether Germany was being complacent about the far-right threat.
If Luebcke’s murder is found to have been politically motivated, it would be the first murder in Germany of an elected politician by far-right forces since the fall of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime at the end of World War Two.
WATCH: Growing suspicions Saudi Arabia assassinated outspoken journalist
Ernst’s original confession did not stop further investigation into a crime that shocked Germany. Police later arrested two other suspects who they said were involved in obtaining the gun used in the killing.
The chance discovery in 2011 of a neo-Nazi cell, the National Socialist Underground, whose members murdered eight Turks, a Greek man and a German policewoman from 2000 to 2007, sparked concerns that security services were underestimating the far-right threat.
A documentary crew from ARD public television filmed protesters at a demonstration of the anti-immigration Pegida movement justifying last month’s murder of Luebcke, a conservative politician known for his pro-immigration views.
WATCH: Mexico to curb irregular migration after reaching deal with U.S. on suspending tariffs
Armin Laschet, deputy head of Merkel’s Christian Democrats and premier of Germany’s largest state, tweeted: “In what times are we living, when people approve of murder before a running camera?”
An Infratest Dimap poll found 66% of Germans thought the state too often went easy on neo-Nazis and the far-right, and 71% thought there was a major threat from far-right violence, compared to 60% and 41% who thought the same of Islamist and far-left violence respectively.
Comments