German Yom Kippur Shooter Sentenced to Life

During the trial, the shooter had revealed deeply anti-Semitic, racist and xenophobic convictions, telling judges that he wanted “to kill as many Jews as possible,” that he would have also killed Jewish children and that his “fight” against Jews was only resting because he was in prison now, according to a court spokesman and lawyers present at the trial.

The attacker filmed himself and live-streamed his shooting spree. Mr. Balliet confessed in court to being the person in the video, according to the court spokesman and Mr. Balliet’s lawyer. Mr. Balliet’s lawyer said he and his client hadn’t yet decided whether they would appeal the verdict. The lawyer, Hans-Dieter Weber, had argued for a plea of diminished responsibility but the court found Mr. Balliet had full legal culpability.

Armed with eight shotguns and explosives Mr. Balliet had tried but failed to break into the gated synagogue, where 52 people had gathered, according to the indictment. Frustrated by his failure, the attacker set out to kill migrants, stopping at a kebab shop. In court, Mr. Balliet said that he had killed the man in the kebab shop because he thought he was a Muslim.

Some survivors or witnesses who had joined the prosecution as co-plaintiffs in the case against Mr. Balliet warned during the trial about growing anti-Semitism and right-wing extremism in Germany.

“The only thing he regretted was not having achieved his goal,” said Juri Goldstein, a lawyer who defended two of the people who were inside the synagogue on the day of the attack. “I never thought I would hear something like this in a German court today.”

Prosecutors had called the attack one of the “most repulsive anti-Semitic acts since World War II” and demanded the highest possible sentence for Mr. Balliet, which the judges granted.

The court Monday not only handed Mr. Balliet a lifelong sentence—which is rare in Germany even for convicted killers—but also restricted Mr. Balliet’s ability to seek parole in the future because of the seriousness of his crime and the fact that he had said he would try again to kill Jews if released. Under German law a lifelong prison sentence usually allows convicts to seek parole after a minimum of 15 years. Under the provision invoked by the court, Mr. Balliet is unlikely to ever be released, lawyers said.

Monday’s verdict comes after a streak of violent attacks in Germany that have revived a debate about the rise of far-right extremism in the country responsible for the Holocaust.

In February this year, a gunman killed nine people and injured many others in an immigrant neighborhood near Frankfurt after writing a manifesto that called for the extermination of entire ethnic groups. Another man has been charged for killing a prominent pro-refugee politician while motivated by racist and xenophobic views in the summer of 2019.

Overall in 2019, authorities recorded 21,290 far-right hate crimes, a rise from the 19,409 recorded in 2019, and an increase in the number of people considered violent right-wing extremists to 13,000 from 12,700 in 2018.

Uffa Jensen, deputy head of the Center for Research on Antisemitism at Technical University Berlin said the Halle attack had raised awareness about the danger of right-wing extremist anti-Semitism in Germany alongside Islamist terrorism—which authorities say remains a serious threat.

The government has passed legislation to tackle far-right extremism and online hate speech since the attack, including a plan to spend €1 billion, equivalent to $1.23 billion, by 2024 on prevention, research and projects to raise risk awareness in society and help victims of attacks.

Max Privorozki, head of the Jewish community in Halle, who was inside the synagogue when the attacker tried to break in, said police and local authorities had stepped up efforts to better protect Jewish institutions in Germany since the attack. Mr. Privorozki and other Jewish leaders had criticized a lack of protection in smaller German cities after the Halle attack.

Samuel Salzborn, anti-Semitism commissioner in Berlin, said despite higher awareness since the Halle attack, German society had yet to fully accept that anti-Semitism should be fought in principle and permanently.

Write to Ruth Bender at [email protected]