Saxony: AfD man arrested in right-wing terrorist raid

According to DPA information, an AfD member was arrested in the raid against suspected right-wing terrorists in Germany, Poland and Austria. Accordingly, it is a local politician from Saxony who is also a member of the Junge Alternative Sachsen. The Federal Prosecutor’s Office arrested a total of eight people and accused them of membership in the terrorist organization “Saxon Separatists”.

The Saxon AfD regional association rejected any substantive or organizational connection to the group. “We only know the previous press reports on this process. Our party stands firmly on the basis of the free-democratic basic order. We have nothing in common with such a presumably neo-Nazi ‘separatist group’ in terms of content or organization,” said party spokesman Andreas Harlaß to the German Press Agency .

If the allegations against the man are confirmed, a spokesman for the federal party said when asked that he would be immediately expelled from the party. Regarding reports that at least one member of the youth organization Junge Alternative (JA) may be among those arrested, the spokesman said: “As far as the Junge Alternative (JA) is concerned, it is an independent association that is not organizationally connected to the AfD .” However, the AfD assumes that if allegations against JA members are confirmed, they would be immediately excluded from the association.

According to officially unconfirmed information from security circles, the local politician appeared in front of the police officers with a long gun during the raid that morning. A police officer then fired two warning shots, it was said. The accused suffered a broken jaw and is currently undergoing surgery. Witness interviews will clarify how the injury occurred and further details about the incident.

The Federal Prosecutor’s Office had eight suspected right-wing terrorists arrested in Saxony and Poland on Tuesday morning. At the same time, around 20 properties were searched, as the Karlsruhe authorities announced. She accuses the accused of membership in a terrorist organization. The association calls itself the “Saxon Separatists”.

The group is said to have planned, among other things, to establish a National Socialist-oriented community in Saxony and possibly also in other East German federal states on an as yet undetermined “Day X” and, if necessary, to remove “undesirable groups of people” from this area “through ethnic cleansing”. Those arrested should be brought before the investigating judge at the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe on Tuesday and Wednesday, who will decide on pre-trial detention.