For planning any further attacks on politicians while posing as a Syrian refugee, a former German soldier was sentenced to prison.
Prosecutors think he was aiming to undermine the state by attributing the attacks to immigrants.
The officer, who was only identified as Lt Franco A, received a five-year and six-month prison term.
He was detained in 2017 when he attempted to reclaim a firearm that had been discovered by a maid in an airport bathroom in Vienna.
After his detention, it came to light that he was travelling under a fictitious name and had enrolled himself in Germany as a Syrian refugee despite not speaking Arabic.
Authorities claimed that Franco had illegally obtained semi-automatic assault guns, practised shooting them, compiled lists of potential targets, and investigated the locations of those targets. They also claimed that Franco harboured “a nationalist, racist, and anti-Semitic mindset.”
According to the prosecution, he had included important Jewish human rights activists, MPs, and cabinet members as his prospective targets.
Far-right organisations were found throughout the inquiry in the German police and army.
As a result, the army underwent changes, and the German security forces focused more on right-wing extremism.
The soldier maintained throughout the trial that he was not an extremist and had not planned any assaults.
The defendants’ last names are kept private in accordance with German privacy laws.
His double existence was revealed when officials found the soldier stationed in Strasbourg’s fingerprints resembled those he had used to enrol as a Syrian Christian seeking asylum who lived 3 hours north of Frankfurt.
The deputy speaker of the parliament, a Jewish activist, and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas are all believed to have been on his list of potential targets. According to the prosecution, he planned to use his fictitious Syrian identity to stage attacks and have them blamed on refugees in order to incite anti-Muslim sentiment.
They cited a cache of weapons he had stored in his parent’s basement that was later discovered in a friend’s home. The officer is alleged to have praised Hitler in notes and recordings that have been cited.
A “Hannibal” network of survivalists believed by intelligence officials to have been planning for the fall of the German state on “Day X” is also said to have included him.
His arrest followed the inflow of refugees from Syria and other countries seeking asylum in 2015–2016. However, it was also one of the numerous instances connecting military personnel to Germany’s far right.
Despite a ban on Nazi insignia, Nazi army paraphernalia was discovered weeks after his imprisonment on exhibit in the base common room at Illkirch in Strasbourg