In another trial against the former NPD lawyer Horst Mahler, the public prosecutor’s office has demanded 4 years and 8 months in prison for the 87-year-old.
Mahler was guilty of inciting hatred and denying the Holocaust and justifying National Socialist despotism, the prosecutor said in his pleadings before the Potsdam district court. According to the public prosecutor, 4 months of the total sentence applied for should be considered served due to years of delay in the proceedings.
Mahler has been convicted several times for incitement to hatred and denial of the Holocaust.
confession without remorse
The prosecutor explained that Mahler admitted to writing criminal writings during the trial. However, this confession was not marked by remorse – Mahler used the main trial as a podium and defended his theses. The 87-year-old had shown himself unreasonable and blinded.
Mahler’s defense attorney Jan Dollwetzel, on the other hand, demanded his client’s acquittal. The 87-year-old had his basic writing, which he wrote during his imprisonment in Cottbus prison in 2013, checked by the prison management, who raised no concerns. Therefore, his client was not aware that he was committing a crime, said Dollwetzel.
In addition, Mahler’s statements are covered by freedom of religion. However, the public prosecutor requested that the proceedings be discontinued due to the statute of limitations on the 2013 letter.
Lawyer criticizes arrest claim as “hidden life sentence”
Dollwetzel criticized the prosecutor’s demand for punishment as a “hidden life sentence”. Because it is by no means certain that his seriously ill client would live to see the end of his imprisonment, said the defense attorney.
Mahler emphasized in his last word that he had not called for the annihilation of the Jews, but for the annihilation of Judaism. Because the 87-year-old still wants to express himself extensively, the chamber has scheduled five more days of negotiations until March 16th until the verdict.
The indictment accuses Mahler of criminal statements in a total of eleven writings, which he is said to have spread via the Internet and emails between 2013 and 2017, some while he was still in prison. In it he conjures up an alleged struggle of the “German national spirit” against Judaism, which is geared towards world domination.
During the trial, Mahler admitted to having written the writings and defended them.
In 2017 Mahler fled to Hungary
The 87-year-old had already been convicted several times for Holocaust denial and had served his prison sentences from 2009 to October 2020 with an intermission in the Brandenburg/Havel prison. Mahler’s imprisonment was interrupted in 2015 because of his serious illness. When he was due to start his sentence again in April 2017, the then 81-year-old fled to Hungary and unsuccessfully asked for political asylum there. After his extradition in the summer of 2017, Mahler had to serve out the remainder of his sentence.
