Hate trial in Dresden: high rigor demanded for Ingolf Knajder
The head of the Dresden homelessness association, Ingolf Knajder, is said to have incited hatred of Islam via his Facebook profile. Now we are discussing the prescription of offenses.
The head of the Dresden homelessness association, Ingolf Knajder, is said to have incited hatred of Islam and denied the Holocaust via his Facebook profile.
© Fabian Estate / dpa
Dresden. In fact, Ingolf Knajder, head of the association “Dresden citizens help Dresden homeless and needy”, should be relieved. The prosecutor’s office has now withdrawn nine out of ten charges. But no signs of relief.
Knajder’s defense attorney, Michael Bürger, rejected the prosecutor’s remark that he had not already addressed the statute of limitations. His client should be acquitted of all charges, there is no clear evidence that he is the owner of the Facebook account in whose name hatred was sown.
The Dresden District Court has been negotiating since May for incitement to hatred and insults against the 58-year-old. One reason for the duration is an ongoing police request on Facebook, which has now surprisingly been answered. In a nutshell: the response was not at least a relief for the person concerned.
Nine of the ten offenses are barred
The prosecutor argued that nine acts were absolutely prescribed. She is new to the trial and has therefore verified the statute of limitations. Since all acts are “declaration offenses”, the time of publication should be used as the time of the act and not how long Knajder’s agitation was publicly read on his Facebook page.
After Knajder’s complaint in 2018, investigators found incriminated passages also in 2019. However: the hate messages had already been published between 2012 and 2016.
One comment – the accused is said to have downplayed the mass murder of Jews during the Nazi dictatorship on February 13, 2016, the anniversary of the bombing of Dresden – the statute of limitations would be broken, so much so that he should be sentenced, according to the public. ministry. He asked for a € 4,500 fine for this comment. With the large number of his posts, Knajder shows that he adheres to an “extremely dangerous” ideology.
Implausible hacker attack
Furthermore, his behavior did not suggest that his Facebook profile could have been hacked by third parties. After all, she hasn’t deleted the hate comments in all these years. Knajder even set the Holocaust issue to “private” and it was still visible to his Facebook friends.
Defense attorney Bürger retorted: the data stored on the “Man of Charity” Facebook account, such as an e-mail address and a mobile number, could not be assigned to his client. Only one “weak indication” is that Knajder’s bank account is still paying the bills for the cell phone in question, which was in the name of his mother, who in the meantime died at the time of the crime.
The defendant himself did not comment on the allegations. Among other things, Knajder is said to have described Islam as “a violent and hateful organization” and disparaged Muslims as “shit Arabs”, “complete and crazy idiots”. A computer forensic scientist from the Saxony State Criminal Police Office testified before the memoirs that he was unaware of hacked Facebook accounts, although this was possible.
Since the judge also wants to check the statute of limitations before making his decision, he has set another date for the announcement.
