Probation for neo-Nazis who plotted synagogue bombing
Five German neo-Nazis were placed on probation today for their roles in a plot to bomb the dedication of a Munich synagogue and community centre.
Four defendants – three women and one man, aged 18 to 23 – were found guilty of membership in a terrorist organisation, a serious charge rarely applied in Germany against the extreme right.
The fifth defendant, a 38-year-old man, was convicted of aiding the group by obtaining explosives and of illegal possessing a firearm.
The plot’s alleged ringleader and head of the Kameradschaft Sued extreme-right group, Martin Wiese, is being tried separately. He has denied that any attack was planned.
The defendants knew that explosives were being collected for “a huge thing,” in Wiese’s words, according to Munich Judge Bernd von Heintschel-Heinegg.
Their goal was clearly to “bring about a political coup in a bloody revolution,” the judge said.
Police said in September 2003 that they had foiled the attack, seizing nearly four pounds of TNT, 31 pounds of suspected explosives and two hand grenades in raids.
The German president and top Jewish leaders attended the dedication of the new Jewish centre on November 9, 2003,
November 9 is the anniversary of the Nazi’s 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom in which thousands of Jewish businesses and synagogues were vandalised, about 100 Jews killed and thousands more deported to concentration camps.
