01-05-2025
Germany court jails accomplices of right-wing extremist group
In March, a court jailed four members of the self-styled "United patriots" group for plotting a coup and to kidnap the health minister.
It was one of several trials targeting the wider far-right Citizens of the Reich movement, whose members adhere to conspiratorial narratives and reject the legitimacy of the modern German state.
On Wednesday, a court in Koblenz said a 53-year-old man and 34-year-old woman had been aware of the "United patriots" group's schemes.
The man had identified high-voltage power lines, part of their plan to carry out attacks against the country's electricity grid. He was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison.
The 34-year-old woman, an administrator of several online chat groups, was found guilty of lending her car and giving a member of the group a document containing instructions on how to make explosives.
She was sentenced to two and a half years in prison.
The four main defendants and members of "United patriots" - three men aged 46 to 58 and a 77 year-old woman - were sentenced in a separate trial in March to prison terms ranging from five years and nine months to eight years.
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Together they had hatched a plan to kidnap Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, a figure of scorn for many opponents of Covid-era restrictions, and to kill his bodyguards if they deemed it necessary.
The group was associated with Citizens of the Reich, whose adherents hold that the German Empire, which collapsed in 1918, still exists.
They oppose democratic values and deny the German government's legitimacy - an ideology that grew significantly during the pandemic and its many government-imposed restrictions.
The "United patriots" aimed to create the conditions for a "civil war" and the appointment of a new leader, around whom group members would "occupy central positions within the executive".
