After a long trial, the judges are convinced: the German soldier was planning a serious act of violence that was dangerous to the state. Prosecutors had asked for more than six years in prison. The defense, however, pleaded for acquittal of the terror charge.
Franco A. was found guilty after a long trial.
A sensational process has come to an end in Germany. When the verdict was announced on Friday, the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt am Main saw it as proven that the German Franco A., who was born in 1989, had planned a serious crime that endangered the state. The judges sentenced the suspended Bundeswehr officer to five years and six months in prison. They stayed under the sentence of six years and three months required by the prosecution.
The judges also found A. guilty of violating the Weapons Act. He also fraudulently obtained social benefits. In addition, they attested to a nationalist, right-wing extremist and anti-Semitic attitude that had been solidified over the years. The verdict is not yet legally binding. The accused, his defense attorneys and the Federal Public Prosecutor can appeal, which would then have to be decided by the Federal Court of Justice.
Planned attack on Claudia Roth?
With its decision, the court largely followed the charge that A. had described in June as a “right-wing terrorist” who planned attacks on the lives of high-ranking politicians or public figures. The targets are said to have been the then Minister of Justice Heiko Maas and the former Vice President of the Bundestag and current Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth. The founder of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, Anetta Kahane, is also said to have been in the spotlight. According to the court, A. blamed people who were known for their pro-refugee commitment for what he perceived as the “disintegration of the German nation”.
Contrary to the indictment, the court could not find that A. wanted to commit the planned attack under his pseudo-identity as a Syrian refugee “Benjamin David/David Benjamin”. In fact, he managed to register as an asylum seeker in December 2015 without knowing Arabic and was later granted subsidiary protection. He also wore dark makeup and dyed his beard black. As a result, he was granted social benefits. By his own admission, A. wanted to uncover the weaknesses of the German asylum system.
Defense pleaded for acquittal
Last week, the defense pleaded for acquittal of the charge of terror planning. In case of doubt, it should be decided for the accused, said As’s lawyers. He always denied having planned an attack on a politician or a public figure. He also doesn’t want to be right-wing extremist. He only hoarded weapons and ammunition in case of a collapse of public order in Germany.
But that didn’t convince the Senate. The defendant’s extremist views are clear from his notes and audio files he recorded. The possession of Nazi memorabilia, personal statements and those of witnesses in the main hearing also proved this. Overall, evidence presented during the trial did indeed indicate a strong penchant for conspiracy theories, as well as anti-Semitic and racist sentiments. Statements such as “Blacks can never be German”, “the German race will be wiped out by the influx of refugees”, and there is a “world conspiracy for which the Zionists and the USA are responsible”. In addition to many other remarks, the slips of paper also contained suspicious words and sentences such as “Grenade, asylum seeker, have them thrown”.
The court also cited a master’s thesis he wrote in 2013 entitled “Political Change and Subversion Strategy” as evidence of A’s attitude. According to one expert, A. used “explicitly racist vocabulary” reminiscent of Nazi propaganda. The work that A. wrote as an officer candidate at a French military academy was not accepted.
No doubts about the will to act
The judges were certain that they wanted to commit a serious act of violence that was dangerous to the state. In particular, the defendant’s recordings and audio files created by him were decisive here. In addition, the accused fitted a rifle with a telescopic sight in the summer of 2016. He also spied on the underground car park of the building in which the premises of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation are located. He also took photos of the cars in this underground car park. He also did target practice with several guns at a shooting range and sent a picture of Anetta Kahane to a witness.
The process was circumstantial from the start and remained so to the end. However, over the months and days of negotiations, the picture changed. In November 2017, the Federal Court of Justice had ordered the release of A. from the seven-month pre-trial detention because he had no longer seen any urgent suspicion of a crime. At the time, it was said that there was no high probability that A. had planned an assassination attempt, in which he also wanted to cast suspicion on an asylum seeker.
12 days of negotiations turned into around 40
In June 2018, the Frankfurt Higher Regional Court even referred the case to the Darmstadt Regional Court because there was insufficient suspicion for the preparation of a serious act of violence that was dangerous to the state. However, the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office successfully lodged a complaint with the Federal Court of Justice, so that the proceedings were finally conducted before the State Security Senate of the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt.
The process, for which 12 days of negotiations were initially scheduled from May 2021, then dragged on well over a year longer than originally expected. In the meantime, around 40 days of meetings have taken place – also because the defense had made numerous requests for evidence in the past few months.
February 11, 2022 and the following days mark an important turning point. On his return from Strasbourg, where A. was stationed before his suspension, the 33-year-old was picked up at the “Ledermuseum” S-Bahn station in Offenbach near his home with Nazi memorabilia, notebooks and various cell phones and arrested a little later . He had picked up the items, which apparently belonged to him, from a comrade in Strasbourg.
Complaint dismissed
Since then, Franco A. has been in custody again. Among other things, the judges feared that he could retrieve several weapons that he once owned and whose whereabouts are still unknown today.
Franco A. never came across as a Nazi in court, neither visually nor in his statements, but rather gave himself the appearance of an intellectual with long hair, a plaid shirt and a trench coat, who is looking for some hidden truth. For many of his sometimes strange behavior and documented events, A., who was often astonishingly open to discussion and talkative in court, always had an explanation that seemed plausible at first glance.
Found a gun in the bushes?
However, some of the descriptions remained completely unbelievable. The first example to be mentioned is the allegation that he accidentally found a handgun over 75 years old while urinating in the bushes during a visit to Vienna. A molecular biologist finally testified during the trial that there was a lot of A.’s DNA on the weapon’s magazine, which suggests that he often handled the pistol. And evidence collected by the public prosecutor’s office indicates that A. deliberately acquired the handgun in question six months earlier in Paris.
The process also brought to light in phases what went wrong at the peak of the refugee crisis in Germany in 2015 and 2016 when taking in refugees. Sloppy reviews, overwhelmed and unprofessional clerks and lousy translations came to light again, among other things, through testimonies in court. In this respect, the proceedings also had a contemporary historical component in addition to the main issue.
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