Lina E. is charismatic female leader of the violent extreme Left in eastern Germany. Several months ago she and some of her comrades went on trial in Dresden for various violent acts against right-wingers. Then, after being convicted and sentenced, Lina E. was released from jail pending a final revision of her sentence. Whether she will show up for her next appearance in court is anybody’s guess.
Left-wing extremists around Lina E. sentenced to prison terms
The verdicts in the largest prosecution against violent left-wing extremists in years have been handed down: Lina E. and her accomplices are sentenced to prison terms. The court falls short of the demands of the prosecution. The brutality of the attacks shocked everyone.
In the end everything happened very quickly: the Dresden Higher Regional Court sentenced the left-wing extremist Lina E. and three other accomplices to prison terms for forming a criminal organization and numerous attacks on alleged right-wing extremists. Lina E. has to go to prison for five years and three months. Her three co-defendants were sentenced to prison terms of between two years and five months, and three years and three months. The court thus fell well short of the demands of the federal prosecutor, who had demanded eight years in prison.
The verdict came on the 99th day of the trial. A lengthy process that ended with only one witness. A review and an outlook:
The beginning of the process
The proceedings against the student Lina E. and three other suspects are to begin on September 8, 2021. The charge is forming a criminal organization based on Section 129 of the Criminal Code. The federal prosecutor sees it as proven that Lina E. and three other defendants are members of a criminal organization. Between 2018 and 2020, she and other members of the gang are said to have planned and carried out attacks on right-wing extremists. The ringleaders are Lina E. and her fiancé Johann G., who, however, has gone into hiding.
The public prosecutor assumes that the gang wanted to put pressure on right-wing extremists as a motive. Right-wing extremists, or people whom they took to be, would at least be injured by their attacks. Hans Schlueter-Staats, the presiding judge, spoke of “serious bodily harm offences”. Purpose of the attacks: Fear and insecurity would be created through a constant scenario of brutality. This fear would lead right-wing extremists to give up their actions.
The victims
October 2, 2018: Attack on the then-unaligned city councilor Enrico B. in Leipzig. The former NPD member is seriously injured — fractured kneecap, kicks in the head.
October 30, 2018: The right-wing extremist Cederic S. is attacked by hooded people in Wurzen. They hit him with blackjacks. There are several fractures of the spine, at times there is a risk of death.
January 8, 2019: Sewer worker Tobias N. works together with colleagues on Bornaische Straße in Leipzig Connewitz. Suddenly several hooded people hit him, injuring him life-threateningly. A woman is said to be among the attackers. The thugs yell: “This is a Nazi, he deserves it.” Motive of the attack: Tobias N. wears a hat from the right-wing fashion label “Greifvogel Wear” in winter.
October 19, 2019: The robbery of the right-wing scene bar “Bull’s Eye” in Eisenach follows. It belongs to Leon R. The landlord and five guests are attacked with baseball bats.
The night of December 13th to 14th, 2019: Leon R. is driven home by friends. When he gets out, hooded men attack him. He fights back. The attackers hit the car with hammers and stab the occupants with sticks. A woman’s voice is said to have ordered the retreat. The alerted police are able to track and stop two vehicles. Lina E. and Lennart A. are sitting in a VW Golf; the car belongs to Lina E.’s mother; the license plates are stolen. Another car is stopped in Wommern. Two of the five occupants escape. A third vehicle, in which the later key witness Johannes D. is sitting, is caught speeding both on the outward and return journey on the A 4 near Jena.
February 15, 2020: About 20 hooded left-wing extremists attacked six right-wing extremists at the Wurzen train station. The six come from Dresden from a memorial march for the air raids in 1945; they have a war flag with them. Four of them are critically injured. Upon reviewing the video footage, investigators found that a woman and a man observed the group on the train and then spoke on the phone. It is said to be Lina E. and her fiancé Johann G. The couple themselves do not take part in the attack, but stay on the train and continue to Leipzig.
At least 13 people are said to have become victims of the hammer gang. Leon R. gave an interview to JF in his bar in Eisenach after he was attacked. At that time he described the attack by the Hammer Gang. Leon R. is currently in custody, just like Enrico B. from Leipzig. The accusation of the federal prosecutor against the two right-wing extremists: Formation of a criminal organization.
The accused
Lina E. (27), from Kassel, high school, mother teacher, father is senior teacher. Lina E. studies social education in Halle. Her bachelor thesis is entitled “On dealing with neo-Nazism in youth work”. The NSU in the youth club Winzerla” is graded “Very Good”. Lina E. moves to Leipzig-Connewitz in 2018. By August of that year at the latest, she is said to have joined left-wing extremists. In 2019 from Leipzig she will begin her master’s degree in Halle. The first provisional detention is on July 10, 2020 for five days; on November 5, 2020 she is arrested again in Connewitz, and Lina E. has been in custody since November 6, 2020. She is in Chemnitz women’s prison and begins training as a carpenter, claiming that she suffers from rheumatism. She has not previously been convicted.
Lennart A. (28), from Braunschweig, born in 1994, called “Mio”. After graduating from high school, he begins studying physics at the University of Leipzig, then switches to mathematics. He is said to have joined the group centering on Lina E. at the end of 2019.
Jannis R. (37) from Freiberg was born in 1985. Abitur [high school diploma], community service, dropped out of physics studies at the TU Dresden, then communication science at the University of Leipzig, dropped out there, too. After training as a social assistant, he cannot complete his training as a state-approved educator because marijuana is seized from him — drug use is an exclusion criterion. He has been working in a nursing service since 2019. He reportedly joined the group in 2019.
Philipp M., (29), Berliner, called Nero. The male nurse comes from the autonomous [anarchist] community on Rigaer Strasse. He has a criminal record for blinding a police helicopter pilot with a laser pointer in 2017. For this he was sentenced to eighteen months in prison.
A tough process
At the beginning of the trial, the accused remained silent. You don’t have to say anything, that’s your right. In this respect, the taking of evidence is extremely tough for a long time. Video recordings only show masked people and the recorded conversations from bugged cars also do not allow for clear perpetrators. Witnesses, mostly victims, cannot identify the accused as perpetrators. Leon R. is only able to recognize the voice of Lina E. Enrico B., who was brutally injured by several thugs in front of his house, cannot identify the accused as the perpetrators in court. A mixed DNA trace on a plastic bag that the police discovered at the crime scene was from Lina E. — her defense attorney doubts that the trace definitely came from his client.
The crime tools discovered during house searches in Lina E.’s apartment, such as the hammer, cell phones packed in plastic bags, clothing and €4,000 in cash, are not enough to convict the accused. Many investigators and experts will testify. But then something unpredictable happens.
The private jet that crashed in the mountains of Southwest Virginia after causing F-16s to be scrambled over Washington D.C. was carrying the daughter and granddaughter of John Rumpel, a millionaire Florida businessman. Both family members, plus the child’s nanny and the plane’s pilot, are thought to have died in the crash. It’s possible that the plane’s cabin had depressurized, and that all on board were unconscious. Mr. Rumpel has been a donor to the Republican Party, and his wife is a member of the National Rifle Association.
