For the federal prosecutor’s office, “Knockout 51” was a terrorist group and therefore failed in court. And the Federal Court of Justice is not convinced either.
dpa | According to a ruling by the Federal Court of Justice (BGH), the right-wing extremist martial arts group “Knockout51” is a criminal, but not a terrorist organization. The highest German criminal court overturned on Thursday a ruling by the Thuringian Higher Regional Court in Jena in individual points, but basically confirmed his assessment that the group is not a terrorist organization.
According to the security authorities, “Knockout 51” was founded in Eisenach in Thuringia at the beginning of 2019 at the latest. Under the guise of joint martial arts training, young and nationalist-minded people were attracted and associated with right-wing extremist ideas, according to the Thuringian Office for the Protection of the Constitution 2024. The group is said to have tried to to create a “Nazi neighborhood” in Eisenach.
The federal prosecutor’s office had four suspected heads of the group arrested in a nationwide raid in April 2022. The OLG Jena sentenced her in July 2024 Among other things, for membership in a criminal organization and grievous bodily harm to prison sentences of between two years and two months and three years and ten months.
The federal prosecutor’s office had called for harsher punishments. She classified “Knockout 51” not only as a criminal organization, but also as a terrorist organization. According to the indictment, the accused planned to kill political opponents with knives, axes and machetes, a representative of the authority explained in court.
BGH did not see any terrorist group
The Jena Higher Regional Court disagreed. The group was aiming for bodily harm, not murder or manslaughter, the presiding judge explained when announcing the verdict in 2024. The men wanted to prepare for possible attacks by left-wing extremists. The accusation of a terrorist organization is “pure fiction”.
When reviewing the judgment, the BGH was unable to identify any legal errors on this point. However, he overturned a defendant’s guilty verdict because a weapons offense may have been misjudged. In addition, the Jena Higher Regional Court must reassess the prison sentences against this and two other defendants because the Federal Court of Justice has changed its case law with regard to the relationship between the crimes since the Higher Regional Court ruling. The verdict against the fourth accused, however, is final.
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