A German right-wing extremist was sentenced to life in prison on Monday for killing two people in a shooting near a synagogue on Yom Kippur last year – recording the nauseating attack and streaming it online.
Stephan Balliet, 28, was convicted of two counts of murder, 66 attempted murder, bodily harm, and instigating the attack outside the Jüdische Gemeinde Halle Temple, while worshipers observed within the holiest day in Judaism.
Judges of the Naumburg court found him “seriously culpable”, meaning that after 15 years he will be effectively banned from parole.
When Judge Ursula Mertens announced the verdict for what she called a “ cowardly attack, ” Balliet, with his head shaved and dressed in black, showed no response but took notes, according to the dpa news agency.
In a chilling echo of the March 2019 massacre in Christchurch, New Zealand, shared on Facebook Live, Balliet livestreamed his attack in a video on Twitch for failing to enter the temple.
The October 9, 2019 rampage is considered one of the worst anti-Semitic attacks in Germany’s post-war history.
Balliet introduced himself as ‘Anon’ before airing an anti-Semitic tirade that also included attacks on feminism and immigration. He also placed a screed against Jews before attempting to enter the synagogue.
During his trial, which began in July, Balliet admitted that he wanted to enter the temple and shoot all 51 people inside.
When he couldn’t open the heavy doors, he shot and killed a 40-year-old woman in the street and a 20-year-old man at a nearby kebab shop.
He also injured several others before fleeing the scene, but was caught about an hour and a half later exiting a stolen taxi after an accident.
Mertens said there had been several excruciating moments during the trial and that Balliet had shown not a shred of remorse, adding that society needed to be protected from him.
“You are a fanatical, ideologically motivated lonely perpetrator,” the judge told him. “You are anti-Semitic and xenophobic.”
Balliet apologized to the court for murdering the woman, saying, “I didn’t want to kill white people.”
At the end of the court hearing, Balliet on Monday threw an object – apparently a rolled up file or folder – at representatives of victims who had joined the trial as co-prosecutors, Dpa said.
Four guards then grabbed him and carried him out of the courtroom.
Josef Schuster, the head of Germany’s Central Council for Jews, said the verdict marked “an important day for Germany.”
“The verdict makes it clear that murderous hatred of Jews has no tolerance,” he said in a statement. “Until the end, the attacker showed no regrets, but stuck to his hateful anti-Semitic and racist worldview.”
Mark Lupschitz, a lawyer for nine of the co-prosecutors, told Agence France-Presse he was “relieved” by the verdict, calling the proceedings both “stressful and empowering” for the intended victims.
A government spokesman, Ulrike Demmer, told reporters that the disaster “has shown us the importance of continuing the fight against anti-Semitism, xenophobia and hostility to democracy even more vigorously”.
Israeli ambassador to Germany, Jeremy Issacharoff, said the attack remained “a very, very alarming moment in German history.”
“If that man had been able to enter a synagogue … it would have had a huge impact on post-war German identity and the fight against anti-Semitism,” he told AFP.
With pole wires