Germany dismayed by case of lieutenant claiming to be sheltered by terrorist plot

Of “National Socialist” ideology, according to the prosecution, Franco Albrecht, 32, is suspected of having wanted to prepare in 2017 “an act of serious violence against the security of the State”.

This promising lieutenant from the Franco-German base at Illkirch in eastern France had an arsenal of four firearms, more than 1,000 ammunition and 50 explosive devices stolen from the armed forces (Bundeswehr).

He also had a double identity: He managed to register as a Syrian asylum seeker in order, according to him, to test the system and reveal its flaws.

The process began on Thursday in a Frankfurt court and will last until August. The accused is exposed to ten years in prison.

When he arrived in court, the former soldier again denied the charges against him: “I never planned an action to the detriment of anyone,” he told reporters, adding that he was not on the extreme right.

However, My battle, the racist and anti-Semitic manifesto of Adolf Hitler, is one of the works in his library.

He says a fictitious refugee identity was created to show that the concept of asylum was distorted, he says, following the arrival in Germany of hundreds of thousands of migrants in 2015 and 2016, many of whom were fleeing the war. in Syria.

In 2015, with her face made up, she managed to apply for asylum under a false name, David Benjamin. In rudimentary English, he explained to immigration officials that he had not learned Arabic because he had studied in a French center near Damascus.

He even raised around 400 euros ($ 486) per month in aid and secured a place in a refugee shelter. But he remained in the military at the Illkirch barracks under his real identity.

“He knew that what he was doing was not in accordance with the law”, admitted the German lieutenant, who insists on the fact that he does not harbor violent intentions.

The prosecution doubts it. The defendant “had planned to commit a attack on senior politicians and public figures “posing as a refugee,” reported the Federal Court of Justice in Karslruhe, responsible for terrorism cases.

According to this body, he wanted to hold the migrants responsible for their actions in order to deepen the division in German society after the reception of the refugees facilitated by the government of Angela Merkel.

Among his possible objectives are, according to the indictment, the former Minister of Justice and now head of the portfolio of external relations. Heiko maas, Vice-President of the Bundestag, Claudia Roth, and a human rights activist.

Franco Albrecht’s arrest took place in early 2017 when he was trying to retrieve a pistol he had hidden in a bathroom at Vienna airport in Austria.

His fingerprints were similar to those of Syrian refugee David Benjamin.

This scandal revealed the problems of managing the reception of refugees in Germany despite the fact that the authorities always ensured that they strictly controlled the asylum procedures.

The German army is also accused of not sufficiently fighting against the drift of the far right among its troops. Xenophobic messages were found on his cell phone and in a university newspaper he had written, riddled with nationalist or extremist comments.

In June 2020, the KSK, an elite command of the German army, was dissolved because around 20 of its members were suspected of belonging to the neo-Nazi movement.