Trial Begins for 3 German Neo-Nazis Accused of Killing African Migrant

Three neo-Nazis charged with murdering an African immigrant showed no remorse Tuesday on hearing accusations that they kept kicking and beating their victim even after he stopped moving.

On trial for one of the worst attacks in a surge of neo-Nazi violence this year, the young defendants freely admitted in a closed court session to causing the death, attorneys said. Their motivation, prosecutors alleged, was hatred of foreigners.

Two 16-year-olds and Enrico Hilprecht, 24, are charged with murder in the June 11 attack on Alberto Adriano, a Mozambican who lived for years in the eastern city of Dessau with his German wife and their three sons, ages 8, 3, and 5 months.

As federal prosecutor Joachim Lampe read the indictment, none of the defendants showed emotion except one of the teenagers, who grinned at one point.

Federal prosecutors are handling the case in a show of Germany’s determination to combat hate crimes that Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder says are casting a bad light on the country.

Even as the accused testified in a Halle courtroom, authorities reported a similar attack on an African man, who was beaten and kicked in Barmstedt, north of Hamburg in western Germany. The victim suffered abrasions and bruises, police said. Three suspects were taken into custody.

Nine skinheads between the ages of 16 and 21 were convicted Tuesday in the western town of Bochum of shouting “Heil Hitler!” and molesting foreigners on a bus in December. Three were given jail terms of between eight and 10 months, three were ordered confined in a youth home for four weeks, and three were ordered to perform 100 to 150 hours of community service.

Though neo-Nazi violence is not limited to eastern Germany, the area is fertile ground due to its post-Communist economic collapse, a lack of jobs and frustration at being virtually colonized by the richer west when Germany united 10 years ago.

Schroeder began an unprecedented two-week tour of the region Monday, hoping to get a better feel for its problems but also to rally citizens against the neo-Nazi menace.

In the Halle trial, prosecutors described a frighteningly random attack set in motion when the two younger suspects and Hilprecht met by chance at the Dessau train station, went drinking and came across Adriano, 39, on his way home in a city park at 1:45 a.m.

The three shouted racist abuse at Adriano, then attacked. Lampe, the prosecutor, said Hilprecht alone kicked Adriano 10 times in the head with his jackboots after the defendants yelled things such as “Blacks Out!”

Lampe said Adriano’s life was worthless to the attackers. “The accused accepted that Adriano could die from this use of violence,” he said in the indictment. “They were indifferent because of their hate of foreigners.”

He gave this account: After five minutes of beating, when Adriano no longer moved, the three stripped their victim to humiliate him further, ripped off his wristwatch and assaulted him again, not stopping until a police car arrived. Even as he lay motionless, they called him a name and shouted that he should “get out of our country!”

Adriano, who came to East Germany from then-socialist Mozambique in the 1980s and stayed after unification, died three days after the attack.

If convicted, the two juveniles face a maximum sentence of 10 years, while Hilprecht could get life with parole possible after 15 years. A verdict is expected early next week.

Adriano’s widow, Angelika, sat across from the accused as co-plaintiff. She skipped the afternoon testimony by witnesses because listening to the defendants left her too distraught.

“What was shocking for her and me was that there was not the slightest sense of remorse, not one word of apology,” said Ronald Reimann, the family’s lawyer. “I didn’t get the impression that they had too much feeling for what they did.”