No main trial against confidants of Beate Zschäpe for NSU support

The Dresden Higher Regional Court (OLG) will not open a trial against a confidante of NSU terrorist Beate Zschäpe for supporting a terrorist organization. In the opinion of the senate, it will not be possible to prove in a main trial that the accused knew about the murders of the "National Socialist Underground" (NSU) at the time of her acts of support, the OLG announced. Despite her close friendship with Zschäpe, there was insufficient evidence for this.

The decision is reportedly not legally binding. The federal prosecution can lodge an appeal within one week.

However, proceedings for aiding and abetting particularly serious extortion were opened at the Zwickau district court, as the Higher Regional Court further announced. The accused had known about the NSU robberies. By assisting in the collection of a mobile home used by the NSU in the last robbery in Eisenach on November 4, 2011, she had accepted to provide assistance in a bank robbery.

Incrimination brought in February

In February, the federal prosecutor's office brought charges against the wife of legally convicted NSU supporter André E. for allegedly assisting the terrorist group. According to a statement, she was accused of having known about the NSU's racially motivated murders since the beginning of 2007 at the latest and of having provided Zschäpe with her health insurance card and personal details from September 2008.

Husband André E. was sentenced to two and a half years in prison in 2018. The judges at the Munich Higher Regional Court considered it proven that E. had organized several rail cards for the NSU trio between 2009 and 2011, which were issued to him and his wife - but showed photos of Zschäpe and Uwe Böhnhardt. However, they acquitted him on charges including aiding and abetting attempted murder.

NSU committed murders throughout Germany

The NSU was a neo-Nazi terrorist cell consisting of Zschäpe, Böhnhardt and Uwe Mundlos, who committed ten murders throughout Germany for years from 2000 onwards without being recognized. Their victims were nine businessmen of Turkish and Greek origin and a German policewoman. Mundlos and Böhnhardt also carried out two bomb attacks in Cologne, injuring dozens of people. The two killed themselves in 2011 to avoid arrest - only then did the NSU come to light.

Zschäpe was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2018 after a trial lasting a good five years. André E. was one of four other co-defendants in the trial. The Federal Court of Justice rejected all appeals against the verdict.