Former German soldier with far-right beliefs sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison

A German soldier who holds far-right views has been found guilty of attempting to carry out “false flag” attacks on politicians and people in the public eye while pretending to be a Syrian refugee.

Franco Albrecht, 33, a former first lieutenant in the joint Franco-German Brigade, was sentenced to five and a half years in prison for conspiracy to commit a “serious act of violent subversion” at the higher regional court in Frankfurt.

The judge, Christoph Koller, told the court that Mr Albrecht held “right-wing extremist and ethnicist-nationalist” views and blames the supposed “disintegration of the German nation” on politicians sympathetic to refugees.

The investigation showed that Mr Albrecht owned a copy of Adolf Hitler’s notorious autobiographical manifesto, Mein Kampf, and thought that immigration was a kind of “genocide”.

Mr Albrecht had also posed as a Syrian Christian asylum seeker called “David Benjamin” and had registered himself under that name with authorities in the town of Erding, Bavaria.

It was also alleged that Mr Albrecht had visited conspiracy theorist and antisemitic hate preacher, David Icke, though it was left unclear if the two had indeed met each other.

Campaign Against Antisemitism reports on news and incidents relating to antisemitism in Germany, which have increased considerably.