The defendants, four men, aged 46 to 58, and a 77-year-old woman, who belonged to the self-styled “United Patriots” group, were sentenced to between five years and nine months and eight years’ jail by the Koblenz higher regional court on Thursday.
A fifth defendant received a sentence of two years and 10 months, the German news agency dpa reported.
The guy who convinced the plotters to blow up a big bridge, led them to the arms merchant, and drove the team to the bomb site was an FBI informant. The merchant was an FBI agent. The bomb, of course, was a dud. And the arrest was part of a pattern of entrapment by federal law enforcement since September 11, 2001, not of terrorist suspects, but of young men federal agents have had to talk into embracing violence in the first place. One of the Cleveland arrestees, Connor Stevens, complained to his sister of feeling “very pressured” by the guy who turned out to be an informant and was recorded in 2011 rejecting property destruction: “We’re in it for the long haul and those kind of tactics just don’t cut it,” he said. “And it’s actually harder to be non-violent than it is to do stuff like that.”
Great for making headlines and patting yourselves on the back, but piss poor for averting the far-right takeover of the central government through more traditional channels of business corruption, blackmail, and media slander. The AfD and its even-more-extremist peers aren’t going to consider this sort of sting operation so much as a speedbump on the way to the Reichstag.
This fifth defendant business irks me, too: four men and a woman are already five, any further defendants with different sentences should be at least sixth. But that’s more on the journalist/editor, not you.
German law protects minors in such a way that the press can’t describe any distinguishing features in the news. So “Five well-defined people and a sixth vague person” typically means the sixth person is a child.
Only that the explanation is wrong.
For first a child can not judged for anything in Germany. If it would be a older than than 14 then it could be judged but only by a special court with special rules and laws. The chance that both sentences would be presented on the same day would be low.
The real answer is that they were 5 persons (4 men and 1 woman). 4 of them (including the woman) were considered as leaders (getting higher sentences), while another was only considered as a non-leader (getting a lower sentence).
A 77-year old woman and a child? FFS, this has strong entrapment vibes. Similar to what the FBI has been known to do during the War on Terror.
Great for making headlines and patting yourselves on the back, but piss poor for averting the far-right takeover of the central government through more traditional channels of business corruption, blackmail, and media slander. The AfD and its even-more-extremist peers aren’t going to consider this sort of sting operation so much as a speedbump on the way to the Reichstag.
I’m not seeing where you’re getting a child from.
This fifth defendant business irks me, too: four men and a woman are already five, any further defendants with different sentences should be at least sixth. But that’s more on the journalist/editor, not you.
German law protects minors in such a way that the press can’t describe any distinguishing features in the news. So “Five well-defined people and a sixth vague person” typically means the sixth person is a child.
Gotcha, that was the context I missed. Thanks!
Only that the explanation is wrong. For first a child can not judged for anything in Germany. If it would be a older than than 14 then it could be judged but only by a special court with special rules and laws. The chance that both sentences would be presented on the same day would be low. The real answer is that they were 5 persons (4 men and 1 woman). 4 of them (including the woman) were considered as leaders (getting higher sentences), while another was only considered as a non-leader (getting a lower sentence).
Any arguments for your tin foil hat theory besides vibes? No? Then why post it at all?