Beate Zschäpe is expected to remain in prison until at least 2035

The convicted right-wing terrorist Beate Zschäpe is expected to remain in prison until at least 2035. The Munich Higher Regional Court (OLG) set a minimum term of 24 years for the right-wing terrorist's prison sentence. The court's decision is not yet final, and the defense and federal prosecutors can appeal against it. If the decision is confirmed, Zschäpe could not be released from prison until he is 60 years old at the earliest.

Zschäpe was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2018 as an accomplice in the murders carried out by the neo-Nazi group “National Socialist Underground” (NSU). Zschäpe was part of the core of the terrorist group, together with Uwe Böhnhardt and Uwe Mundlos. The NSU carried out numerous explosive attacks and robberies and murdered a policewoman and nine people with a migrant background - three murders were carried out in Nuremberg and two in Munich.

The terrorist group remained undetected for almost 14 years, partly due to numerous mistakes and one-sided investigations by the security authorities. On November 4, 2011, the NSU exposed itself when Böhnhardt and Mundlos committed suicide after a failed bank robbery in Eisenach in Thuringia and Zschäpe set fire to their shared apartment in Zwickau, Saxony. Zschäpe turned himself in to the police four days later.

Zschäpe had been in custody since 2011. The trial against her and four co-defendants, who were accused of supporting the NSU, began in May 2013. In the proceedings, the court determined the particular gravity of Zschäpe's guilt, which ruled out early release after 15 years.

Since this period, including pre-trial detention, had now expired, Zschäpe had applied for early release. Zschäpe and her lawyer argued that Zschäpe had moved away from her right-wing extremist stance. While she remained silent when she herself was in court, Zschäpe later testified before the NSU investigative committee of the Bavarian state parliament - as well as in the trial against an NSU supporter before the Dresden Higher Regional Court. In addition, Zschäpe, who is serving her sentence in the Chemnitz prison, has been taking part in a non-governmental neo-Nazi dropout program for some time.

The court found in Zschäpe's favor that she had now confessed to her involvement in the NSU's crimes. In addition, she “expressed shame at having destroyed or massively impaired the lives of innocent, arbitrarily selected people,” explained the Higher Regional Court. Zschäpe distanced herself from the National Socialist ideas underlying her actions. Their behavior in prison provided no evidence of the continued existence of right-wing extremist attitudes.

However, in the court's opinion, these "circumstances" do not have such weight that they could offset Zschäpe's "extraordinarily high level of guilt" to such an extent that her sentence could be suspended after the statutory minimum period of 15 years.