Six months after surviving an Islamist knife attack in the city of Mannheim, anti-Islam activist Michael Sturzenberger has been fined by Hamburg Regional Court for statements he made at a 2020 rally that were judged to be incitement to hatred.
German daily Berliner Zeitung reports that the court issued the 60-year-old German activist with a €3,600 fine.
Mr Sturzenberger was injured during an Islamist knife attack in May this year, which saw 29-year-old police officer Rouven Laur fatally stabbed while attempting to subdue the Afghan national carrying out the attack.
Suleiman Ataee, 25, was charged with murder by federal prosecutors last month and remains in custody at an undisclosed location.
The European Conservative reported at the time that Mr Ataee is a failed asylum seeker.
“The perpetrator arrived in Germany in 2013 and his asylum application was rejected a year later. However, he remained in the country illegally for another nine years,” it said.
“In 2023, he received a temporary residence permit after fathering a child who automatically gained German citizenship. Revealed by German media on Monday to be an admirer of an Islamist preacher whose propaganda videos he shared on YouTube, Ataee is described as having grown a full beard between 2020 and 2023—a sign of commitment to strong religiosity in Islamist circles.”
The stabbing attack took place at a rally hosted by the anti-Islam group, Citizens’ Movement Pax Europa, at which Mr Sturzenberger was speaking.
The trial at which Mr Sturzenberger was convicted was related to comments made by the activist at a 2020 Citizens’ Movement Pax Europa rally in the northern German city of Hamburg.
Mr Sturzenberger was previously sentenced to a six-month prison term in 2022, according to online portal, Endstation Rechts, a sentence that was suspended following an appeal.
Procedural errors saw the case reopened, leading to the latest fine.
Endstation Rechts reported that Mr Sturzenberger’s court appearance was one of his first public appearances since the attack in May, adding that the 60-year-old was seriously injured and, “according to his own statement, does not want to appear at any rallies for the time being”.
Following the attack on Mr Sturzenberger in May and the death of Officer Laur, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that the “police officer in Mannheim defended the right of all of us to express our own opinions”.
“If extremists want to restrict these rights by force, they must know that we are their toughest opponents. We will proceed with all the means of our constitutional state,” he said on that occasion.