Life term sought for suspect in Germany neo-Nazi murders

Beate Zschaepe is co-accused in 10 killings carried out by the other two members of National Socialist Underground

MUNICH: German prosecutors Tuesday sought life in jail for the surviving female member of a neo-Nazi trio accused of a string of racist murders that targeted mainly Turkish immigrants.



Beate Zschaepe, 42, is co-accused in the 10 killings carried out by the other two members of the self-styled National Socialist Underground (NSU), Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Boehnhardt, between 2000 and 2007. Zschaepe for years lived in hiding with Mundlos and Boehnhardt, who shot dead eight men with Turkish roots, a Greek migrant and a German policewoman before the two died in an apparent murder suicide in 2011.

After the men's deaths, Germany was shocked to discover that the killings - long blamed by police and media on migrant crime gangs and dubbed the "doner (kebab) murders" - were in fact committed by a far-right cell with xenophobic motives.  Prosecutor Herbert Diemer told the Munich court that Zschaepe shared the 'fanatical' world view of the two men and their aim to spread fear and terror among immigrants with random murders.



Prosecutors charge that Zschaepe was an NSU member and aided the crimes, also including two bomb attacks and 15 bank robberies, by covering the men's tracks, handling finances and providing a safe retreat in their shared home.