German ‘refugee’ soldier in dock over far-right attack plot

The trial of a German soldier who allegedly plotted to attack prominent politicians while posing as a Syrian refugee began yesterday in a bizarre case fuelling concerns over right-wing extremism.

Franco Albrecht, 32, stands accused of plotting "a serious act of violence that endangers the state". He is also charged with fraud and illegally possessing weapons and explosives.

Ahead of his trial, he told journalists that he denied the charges and claimed he was not a right-wing extremist.

Yet prosecutors say the Bundeswehr lieutenant had taken weapons and explosives from the German army in order to carry out an attack on targets including high-ranking politicians such as then justice minister Heiko Maas.

Despite speaking no Arabic, he had also successfully posed as a Syrian refugee in order to "redirect suspicion onto asylum seekers in Germany in the subsequent investigations" of the attack, they said.

Arrested in 2017 while trying to retrieve a Nazi-era pistol he had hidden in a toilet at Vienna's international airport, Albrecht denies he was plotting an attack.

If convicted, he could face up to 10 years in prison.

Set to last until August, the trial's opening has already been delayed several times by questions over which court was competent to hear the case.

The son of a German mother and an estranged Italian immigrant father, the lieutenant made no secret of his anti-immigration views.

According to a court ruling from 2019, investigations showed he owned a copy of Adolf Hitler's book "Mein Kampf" and believed immigration to be a form of genocide.

In an attempt to expose a system he saw as compromising national security, he posed as a refugee to apply for asylum in his own country.

Using make-up to darken his face and pretending to be a Christian fruit seller from Damascus, he was registered by authorities under the name "David Benjamin", despite speaking no Arabic.

He obtained a space in a shelter and monthly benefits of 409 euros ($485), before later returning to his barracks in Illkirch on the French border.

His double identity was only uncovered upon his arrest in 2017, when police found his fingerprints produced two separate matches.

The fraud laid bare the struggles of Germany's immigration system to cope with the influx of more than one million asylum seekers -- many of them Syrian -- during the refugee crisis of 2015 and 2016.