For five minutes on Saturday nobody knew where the assassin from Halle, Stephan B., was. The state government found out about it only days later. The minister speaks of a "terrible" incident and announces the consequences.
Halle (dpa) - The assassin of the attempted attack on a synagogue in Halle tried to flee the prison.
B. had climbed over a 3.40 meter high fence during a walk in the fresh air on Saturday and had been walking unattended in the Roter Ochse prison in Halle, the Ministry of Justice announced on Wednesday. During this time, he ran into a building on the prison grounds, but found there were only locked doors, said a spokesman for the ministry.
He then returned to the courtyard and was again taken into custody by law enforcement officers. One can speak of an intention to flee, said the spokesman. There were initially no indications of accomplices or intentional behavior by the responsible supervisors. According to the spokesman, Stephan B. was to be taken to prison near Burg near Magdeburg on Wednesday. With almost 700 detention places, it is the largest prison in Saxony-Anhalt and the only high security institution in the state.
How the incident came about was initially unclear on Wednesday. According to the Ministry of Justice, as soon as he leaves his camera-monitored cell, at least two guards have to keep him under surveillance. Justice Minister Anne-Marie Keding (CDU) was horrified and announced the consequences. The prison staff apparently violated regulations, said the CDU politician of the German Press Agency. "That must have consequences". The minister described the incident as "terrible".
Keding ordered the prison management to the Ministry in Magdeburg on Thursday. She also wanted to know from those responsible why she only found out about the incident on Saturday on Tuesday. Criticism of the minister came from the coalition partner SPD. "I am shocked by the incident in the Red Ox," said the political spokeswoman for the SPD parliamentary group, Silke Schindler. "But I'm just as strange about the information behavior of the Minister of Justice." The MPs had learned about the incident from the press.
On October 9, 2019 - on Yom Kippur's highest Jewish holiday - Stephan B., heavily armed, tried to enter the Halle synagogue. He shot a wooden door and threw explosives. When he failed to get to the synagogue, he shot a 40-year-old woman on the street. He then killed a 20-year-old man in a nearby kebab snack bar.
The federal prosecutor's office in Karlsruhe accuses Stephan B. of murdering twice and attempting to murder 68 people in total. The indictment states that the intention to kill as many visitors to the synagogue is evidently based on low motives. B. wanted to kill Jews and Muslims "because, in his view, they each belonged to a religious group that he hated". He wanted to motivate "like-minded people". The process is scheduled to begin on July 21.
