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| Beate Zschäpe given life in German neo-Nazi murder trial | Beate Zschäpe given life in German neo-Nazi murder trial |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| After a five-year trial, a member of a neo-Nazi gang has been found guilty of 10 racially-motivated murders. | After a five-year trial, a member of a neo-Nazi gang has been found guilty of 10 racially-motivated murders. |
| 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. | 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 verdict carries an automatic life sentence. | The verdict carries an automatic life sentence. |
| The connection between the murders was only discovered by chance in 2011, after a botched robbery led to the neo-Nazi group's discovery. | The connection between the murders was only discovered by chance in 2011, after a botched robbery led to the neo-Nazi group's discovery. |
| 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. | 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. |
| 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. | 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 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 police failed to discover the murder plot. | |
| Four other defendants were also given jail terms for their role in helping the NSU gang: | Four other defendants were also given jail terms for their role in helping the NSU gang: |
| Speaking ahead of the verdict, Zschäpe's defence lawyer said she would appeal the life sentence. | |
| During the trial, Zschäpe denied taking part in the murders - but said she felt guilty for not doing more to stop them. | |
| How did the murders continue for years? | |
| The NSU case covers 10 murders, two bomb attacks in Cologne and 15 bank robberies. | |
| The murder victims were mainly ethnic Turks, shot during their ordinary working days with a CZ 83 handgun over the course of seven years. | |
| Police had long suspected that the killers were ethnic Turks in the victims' communities, earning them the nickname the "Bosphorus" murders after Istanbul's famous river. Another derogatory term, "doner murders" - in reference to kebabs - was used by some parts of Germany's press. | |
| Neo-Nazi terror was overlooked, or perhaps deliberately ignored. | |
| Germany's fragmented policing system, with 16 different jurisdictions for the 16 states, may also have contributed to the intelligence failure. | |
| One Greek victim, Theodoros Boulgarides, was also killed in 2005 in the same circumstances as the Turkish victims. | |
| The final victim was Michèle Kiesewetter, a German policewoman, who was shot and killed while sitting in a patrol car on her break in 2007. Her partner - also shot in the head - survived. | |
| The link between the murders - and a claim that the NSU carried out two bombings in Cologne - would only be discovered years later. | |
| Unanswered questions | |
| Jenny Hill, Berlin correspondent | |
| Zschäpe was smiling and relaxed in the minutes before she was sentenced to life in prison. The 43 year old has spoken just twice during the five year long trial. | |
| But while the guilty verdicts will likely be welcomed by the families of the victims, neither these proceedings nor a number of official enquiries have answered fundamental questions. | |
| How and why did the killers select their victims? | |
| And why did the German authorities - who relied on paid informants from within the neo-Nazi community and stand accused of institutionalised racism - seemingly do so little to protect them? | |
| How was the NSU caught? | |
| In 2011, an unusual DVD started circulating in Germany among some press outlets. | |
| It showed the iconic cartoon character the Pink Panther in a doctored cartoon, which showed messages from the NSU about the murders, along with spliced footage of the bombings. | |
| On 4 November 2011, Mundlos and Böhnhardt robbed a bank in a German town, one of a string of similar heists. But this time, police were able to follow them to the caravan they had hidden in. | |
| Despite being heavily armed, the pair did not put up any resistance- and were found dead inside. Investigators believe Mundlos shot Böhnhardt before killing himself. | |
| Zschäpe, now the only surviving member of the NSU trio, apparently set fire to the apartment where all three had lived together in Zwickau. She turned herself in a few days later. | |
| But the fire damage to her home had not destroyed everything - and investigators found a copy of the Pink Panther DVD, linking the trio to the NSU name and the murders. | |
| On top of that, the suspected murder weapon - the Ceska pistol used in nine murders - was also found in the ruins. | |
| Suddenly, it was revealed that a neo-Nazi cell of just three people had operated with impunity for 11 years, murdering 10 people - and had remained unknown to police. | |
| Widespread public outrage followed, along with a parliamentary investigation which demanded tighter surveillance of neo-Nazi activities. | |
| In July 2015 the German parliament, or Bundestag, passed a set of reforms giving greater power to the Verfassungsschutz (domestic intelligence agency) to avoid a repeat of the failures in the NSU investigation. | |
| Co-ordinating the inquiry across several of Germany's 16 states was hindered by a patchwork of different intelligence and security bodies. | |
| The were also key changes to the use of paid informants, known as "V-Leute," to provide information about potential threats to internal security. | |
| But a second investigation on the same topic was also launched, and released its report in June 2017. | |
| It cast doubt on the investigations since 2011 - notably suggesting that more than three people may have been involved with the NSU. | |
| Some members continued to criticise the intelligence agency's use of informants. | |
| A Left party politician on the committee, Petra Pau, told Deutsche Welle: "It's been proven that the NSU's core trio was surrounded by at least 40 informants". | |
| "The federal [domestic intelligence agency] always claimed that it had no informants with the NSU - that's complete nonsense." | |
| The Green's Irene Mihalic also told the broadcaster: "Our research makes more than clear that the neo-Nazis probably profit more from the informants than the security forces and, therefore, society at large." |