Pod Save America Hosts Call on Democrats to Cut All Israel Military Aid, No Longer Accept AIPAC Funding
Jews, Israelis Targeted in Austria Amid Surge in Antisemitic Incidents; Local Jewish Community Calls for Action
‘All of Our Strength’: Over 1,000 Pro-Israel Activists Gather in DC for Solidarity Conference
‘Devastated’: Wesley LePatner, Killed in Manhattan Mass Shooting, Was a Jewish Communal, Philanthropic Leader
Sen. Angus King Vows to No Longer Vote for Israel Military Aid Until Gaza Conditions Improve
Europe Won’t Pressure Israel to ‘Commit Suicide’ Amid Gaza Backlash, Palestinian State Push, Says Israeli FM
Israel’s National Soccer Coach Attacked in Athens Before Soccer Fans Chant ‘F–K Israel, Free Palestine’ at Match
New York Judge Sentences Neo-Nazi to 5 Years for Livestreaming Bomb Threats Against Jewish Hospitals
US Pressures Lebanon to Issue Cabinet Decision to Disarm Hezbollah Before Talks Continue
UK Plans to Recognize Palestinian State in September Unless Israel Meets Conditions, Starmer Says
Neo-Nazi Gunman Who Attacked German Synagogue on Yom Kippur Is Fully Culpable, Expert Tells Trial
Error: Contact form not found.
by Algemeiner Staff
Neo-Nazi gunman Stephan Balliet on trial in Germany. Photo: Reuters / Christian Schroedter.
The German neo-Nazi who carried out a gun attack on Yom Kippur services at a synagogue in the city of Halle in October 2019 was not suffering from a pathological disorder and was fully responsible for his act, an expert psychologist said in court on Wednesday.
The gunman, Stephan Balliet, murdered two people — a passerby and a customer in a nearby kebab restaurant — after failing to penetrate the security doors of the Halle synagogue, where more than 50 worshipers were holding Yom Kippur prayers inside the sanctuary.
Speaking at 28-year-old Balliet’s trial at a court in the city of Magdeburg, psychologist Norbert Leygraf said that Balliet suffered from a “complex personality disorder” alongside “features of autism.”
But Leygraf was not convinced that Balliet exhibited pathological tendencies.
He said that Balliet had carried out his preparations for the attack “meticulously.” Balliet’s ideological views had been formed through contact with like-minded extremists on the internet, supplying him with a worldview in which “xenophobic beliefs and paranoid conspiracy theories are combined with antisemitism.”
Leygraf concluded that Balliet was completely culpable for his act and that there was no reason to diminish his culpability from a “psychiatric point of view.”
Balliet’s trial began in July amid renewed concern over growing antisemitism in Germany.
Government statistics revealed that the number of antisemitic crimes committed in Germany rose by 13 percent in 2019.
