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

Year of issue 2024
Date 23.12.2024

On 20 December 2024,

German national Tobias E.

was extradited from Hungary to the Federal Republic of Germany, where he is to stand trial, in execution of a request for extradition from the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office. He was arrested by agents of the Saxonian State Criminal Police office upon his arrival at Frankfurt (Main) Airport. The Investigating Judge at Federal Court of Justice had issued an arrest warrant on 21 October 2024.

Tobias E. is strongly suspected of participation as a member in a criminal organisation (section 129a para. 1 of the German Criminal Code [StGB]). In this context, he also allegedly inflicted bodily harm jointly with others (section 223 para. 1, section 224 para. 1 StGB).

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

Since 2018, Tobias E. has been a member of a militant left-wing extremist organisation, which was established in and around Leipzig and centred around Lina E. (see Press Release No. 25 of 28 May 2021) and Johann G. (see Press Release No. 66 of 9 November 2024). The members of that group, which also operated within a supra-regional network, shared a militant, left-wing extremist ideology. This included, in particular, the rejection of the existing democratic rule of law, the basic right to free speech and the state monopoly on violence. Between 2018 and 2020, the organisation committed violent assaults on individuals who they viewed as members of the “right-wing scene”. The acts were usually preceded by extensive preparations. For instance, they included advance surveillance of the lifestyle habits of the victims selected. Tobias E. participated in combat training and was involved in acts of violence committed by the organisation.

On 19 January 2019, he and another five to six members of the organisation assaulted four individuals in an underpass at the Dessau-Roßlau train station. The victims were returning from an event in Dresden commemorating the 74th anniversary of the bombing of the city and appeared to be members of the “right-wing scene”. The assailants around Tobias E. attacked them with striking tools, aiming specifically at the heads. When three of the victims fell on the ground, they received further kicks and punches to the head, which lead to potentially life-threatening injuries.

Prior to his extradition, Tobias E. had been held in (criminal) detention in Hungary. On 21 December 2024, He was brought before the Investigating Judge at the Federal Court of Justice who read out the arrest warrant to him and ordered that he be placed in pre-trial detention.