Arrest of a Suspected Supporter of a Left-Wing Extremist Criminal Organisation

Year of issue 2024
Date 22.10.2024

Yesterday (21 October 2024), the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office had agents of the Federal Criminal Police Office and the Saxonian State Criminal Police Office arrest

the German national Thomas J.

in execution of an arrest warrant issued by the Investigating Judge at the Federal Court of Justice on 26 January 2024.

Thomas J. is strongly suspected of supporting a criminal organisation (section 129a para.1 sentence 2 of the German Criminal Code [StGB]). He also allegedly committed dangerous bodily harm (section 223 para. 1, section 224 para. 2 nos. 2 and 4 StGB) and criminal damage (section 303 para. 1 StGB).

In essence, the arrest warrant sets out the following allegations:

From summer 2018 up to and including 2020, Thomas J. promoted the activities of a left-wing extremist organisation that had been formed in and around Leipzig no later than early 2018. Lina E., Lennart A., Jannis R. and Jonathan M., who faced charges in separate proceedings, were also group members. The organisation as a whole and all its members were fervent adherents of a left-wing extremist ideology, which included a rejection of the existing democratic rule of law, in particular the state monopoly on violence. The group, which also operated within a supra-regional network committed at least six violent assaults on individuals allegedly belonging to the ‘right-wing scene’ between October 2018 and February 2020. The attacks were usually preceded by extensive preparations, including advance spying on the habits of their selected victims.

Thomas J. offered his services as a martial arts instructor to the organisation and conducted at least one martial arts training session for group members and like-minded, militant left-wing extremists. On 19 October 2019, he, in concert with Lina E. and others attacked the owner and customers of a bar in Eisenach. The bar was targeted because it was a supposed meeting place of the “right-wing scene”. Several group members, among whom Thomas J., entered the premises, destroyed inventory and attacked the victims with, inter alia, batons, irritant agents and punches. Thomas J. was due to take part in yet another attack and accompanied some members of the organisation in their search for suitable victims.

The Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office had filed charges against Lina E., Lennart A., Jannis R. and Jonathan M. before the Dresden Higher Regional Court in May 2021 (see Press Release No. 25 of 28 May 2021). The judgement of the Dresden Higher Regional Court of 31 May 2023 is not final yet.

The suspect will be brought before the Investigating Judge at the Federal Court of Justice today (22 October 2024) who will read out the arrest warrant to him and decide on the enforcement of pre-trial detention.