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Karl B. with his lawyers in the district court of Mannheim (in January)
Photo: Jan Peter / dpa
The Mannheim district court sentenced a self-proclaimed "druid" to a suspended prison sentence of one year and nine months for hoarding weapons.
In addition, the court imposed on Karl B. a fine of 130 daily rates of ten euros each for incitement to hatred.
The man had denied the Holocaust.
The verdict is not yet legally binding.
This was preceded by an understanding between the parties.
The 71-year-old had confessed to the allegations – in return, the verdict should be mitigated.
The district court announced that part of the sentence is already being carried out because the delay in the proceedings is being compensated for in this way.
Firearms and cartridges were confiscated.
B. should no longer own weapons that require a permit and should not publicly downplay National Socialism or the Holocaust.
B. is considered the head of a quartet with a »state-critical attitude«, which is said to have built up an arsenal of weapons out of fear of anarchy.
During a raid in 2017, weapons, ammunition and explosives were found on the main suspect in the Rhein-Neckar district and his supporters.
Initially, the federal prosecutor's office had investigated the case on suspicion of the formation of a right-wing terrorist organization.
Suspended sentences for three co-defendants
The man, who comes from Grebenstein in northern Hesse, is said to have tried to live independently on a campsite in Saxony-Anhalt in the event of an invasion he feared, for example by Russians or extraterrestrials.
He is attributed to the »Reich Citizens« scene.
The other three men have already been sentenced to suspended prison terms.
One of them, Thiemo B., was found guilty, among other things, of illegally wielding a semi-automatic weapon and also handling explosives.
Klaus D., who as a sports shooter was the only one in the group who had a gun license, was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment on probation for passing on ammunition.
A suspended sentence of one and a half years was imposed on Frank E., among other things, because of the unauthorized exercise of actual violence with weapons of war.
In addition to ammunition and other weapons, investigators also found a flamethrower on him.
wit/dpa/AFP
