Ralf Wohlleben, who was finally convicted as a weapons procurer for the NSU, has to start his remaining prison sentence and serve it out until further notice. The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) refused to suspend the remaining detention on probation. Taking into account the security interests of the general public, “early release from prison cannot be justified,” the judges in Karlsruhe said on Tuesday. In six months, Wohlleben could submit a new application.
In July 2018, Wohlleben was sentenced to ten years in prison for being an accessory in the trial of the racially motivated murders by the “National Socialist Underground” (NSU) terrorist cell.
The Munich Higher Regional Court (OLG) had come to the conclusion that Wohlleben and an accomplice had obtained the pistol for the NSU terrorists Uwe Böhnhardt and Uwe Mundlos in 2000, with which they had murdered eight men of Turkish origin and one man of Greek origin throughout Germany until 2006. The BGH had confirmed this judgment in August 2021, making it final.
Wohlleben was released from custody a few days after the Munich verdict was announced. At that point he had been in custody for more than six and a half years. This time will be counted towards the sentence to be served. If two-thirds of the sentence has been served, the remainder may be suspended. In the case of Wohlleben, this point had almost been reached at the time, with only eleven days to go. The Federal Public Prosecutor had therefore “temporarily refrained from summoning the convict to begin a sentence” even after the judgment had become final, as the BGH announced.
In a decision dated September 1, the Munich Higher Regional Court rejected Wohlleben’s application to suspend the remaining sentence on probation. The BGH now rejected his immediate appeal against it.
“Because of the very high weight of the legal interests threatened by a possible recidivism”, “particularly strict requirements must be made here with regard to the expectation of future impunity”. The judges see the risk “not in their own acts of violence, but in the future, as inconspicuously as possible, supporting acts of violence by others” from the right-wing extremist and neo-Nazi scene.
