Beate Zschäpe given life in German neo-Nazi murder trial
(about 9 hours later)
A Munich court is poised to deliver its verdict on a neo-Nazi terror cell accused of 10 murders - one of modern Germany's biggest criminal cases.
After a five-year trial, a member of a neo-Nazi gang has been found guilty of 10 racially-motivated murders.
The case exposed serious shortcomings in the German state's monitoring of neo-Nazis.
Beate Zschäpe was the main defendant on trial over the murder of eight ethnic Turks, a Greek citizen and a policewoman between 2000 and 2007.
The main defendant is Beate Zschäpe, accused of complicity in the murders, which took place across several regions from 2000 to 2007.
The verdict carries an automatic life sentence.
She shared a flat with two men, who died in an apparent suicide pact in 2011 after a botched robbery. The bodies of Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt were found in a burnt-out caravan.
The connection between the murders was only discovered by chance in 2011, after a botched robbery led to the neo-Nazi group's discovery.
What are the allegations?
Zschäpe shared a flat in the eastern town of Zwickau with two men, who died in an apparent suicide pact. The bodies of Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt were found in a burnt-out caravan used in the robbery.
According to prosecutors, Mundlos and Böhnhardt shot eight ethnic Turks, a Greek citizen and a policewoman in execution-style killings.
Zschäpe, Mundlos and Böhnhardt had formed a cell called the National Socialist Underground (NSU). An explosion at their home - apparently in an attempt to destroy evidence - led to Zschäpe turning herself in.
The killers lived with Ms Zschäpe in Zwickau, eastern Germany, and formed a clandestine National Socialist Underground (NSU) cell, bent on destabilising the country through racist terror, the prosecutors say.
The NSU's seven-year campaign exposed serious shortcomings in the German state's monitoring of neo-Nazis, and led to a public inquiry into how German police failed to discover the murder plot.
The marathon trial in the "NSU case" began in 2013. Ms Zschäpe, 43, said nothing in court - not even giving her name - until 2015, when she described her relationships with Mundlos and Böhnhardt.
Four other defendants were also given jail terms for their role in helping the NSU gang:
They were part of the neo-Nazi skinhead scene that flourished in eastern Germany after the communist regime there fell in 1989.
Ms Zschäpe denied involvement in the killings and apologised to the victims' families for failing to stop what had happened.
Federal prosecutors have urged life imprisonment for Ms Zschäpe, calling her an "ice-cold, calculating" accomplice to murder, ideologically motivated and an important figure in the NSU's operations. They believe she gave logistical help to them.
She gave herself up after setting fire to the Zwickau apartment in 2011.
Police found evidence of the trio's neo-Nazi activities in the burnt-out apartment, including a professionally-made DVD about their racist killing spree.
The confession video, featuring the Pink Panther cartoon character, mocked the victims and police, and included TV news clips about the murders.
Who are the other defendants?
Prosecutors want long prison sentences for four other defendants. For legal reasons not all of their names are given by German media. They are:
Read more on this topic:
What makes this such a big case?
In post-war Germany, in terms of social and political impact, the case ranks alongside the trials of Auschwitz death camp guards and Baader-Meinhof left-wing militants.
Germans were shocked by evidence that the Zwickau cell had committed grave crimes for 11 years, yet police in different regions had failed to see a pattern.
The NSU case covers 10 murders, two bomb attacks in Cologne and 15 bank robberies.
The intelligence failures triggered a major parliamentary inquiry.
MPs said Germany's police and justice officials must exchange intelligence on neo-Nazis, improve training and recruit more ethnic minorities.
Police long suspected that the killers were ethnic Turks in the victims' communities. Neo-Nazi terror was overlooked, or perhaps deliberately ignored.
Clemens Binninger, a policeman who chaired the Bundestag parliamentary inquiry, says the trial has left many questions unanswered - and victims' relatives have said the same.
Suspicions surround the use of informants, paid by state intelligence agents to monitor the neo-Nazi scene.
There are also suspicions that more extremists were connected to the murders. Some DNA found at the murder scenes remains unidentified.
