German skinheads tried for racist murder

HALLE, Germany (Reuters) -- Three German skinheads have gone on trial for the racist murder of a Mozambican man in the eastern town of Dessau amid mounting concern about far-right violence, particularly in the former communist region.

Two 16-year-olds, Frank Mietbauer and Christian Richter, and Enrico Hiltricht, 24, are charged with the murder of 39-year-old Alberto Adriano, who died on June 14, three days after they allegedly beat him unconscious.

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A judgment is expected as early as next Monday as all three have admitted attacking Adriano, who had lived in Dessau for 12 years and married a German woman with whom he had three children. A murder conviction carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment in Germany.

"The accused assumed that Adriano could die as a result of their attack, but their hatred of foreigners made them indifferent to this," prosecutor Joachim Lampe told the court.

The three skinheads barely reacted as the charges were read to the court. But one of them, Richter, could not stop himself from grinning. After the charges were read out, the court was closed to the public as two of the accused are minors.

Ronald Reimann, representing Adriano's widow Angelika, said the three youths had later confessed to the attack.

"All three showed absolutely no remorse. That was so shocking for me and my client that she had to leave the courtroom early," Reimann told reporters outside the court.

The case is being led by Germany's chief prosecutor Kay Nehm, who normally handles cases of alleged terrorism. His assignment to the case is designed to show how seriously the authorities regard the threat of extremist violence.

The charge sheet says the three skinheads were walking through the centre of the town of Dessau late at night on June 11 singing neo-Nazi songs when they crossed paths with Adriano, who was on his way home after visiting friends.

It says they shouted racist slogans at Adriano and blocked his way. Adriano tried to pacify the youths, telling them he had lived in Germany for years and had a family, but to no avail.

The three beat the Mozambican to the ground and kicked him repeatedly with their lace-up army-style boots before stripping him naked. Hiltricht is accused of stamping on Adriano's head at least 10 times. The youths then dragged his inert body about 40 metres before continuing the brutal attack.

The skinheads only stopped when they heard police arriving and tried to flee, but were apprehended near the scene.

Adriano's murder, as well as a mystery bomb attack last month in Duesseldorf which injured 10 immigrants including six Jews, has prompted a new wave of soul-searching about persistent extremist violence in a country still haunted by its Nazi past.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, currently on a meet-the-people tour of the impoverished east -- where the far-right has found fertile ground for new recruits with unemployment twice as high as in the west, has said he is sick of racist attacks and the harm they do to Germany's international image.

In the western town of Bochum, a court sentenced six youths between the ages of 16 and 21 to up to 10 months in jail and a further three to community service for shouting racist abuse and far-right slogans on board a bus carrying foreign children.

But Schroeder's call for ordinary Germans to stand up to extremists could fall on deaf ears. A court spokesman in Halle said the judge hearing the Adriano case had received a bitter note from an 84-year-old local woman who said she and others of her generation had not rebuilt Germany after World War Two for poverty wages just to "hand it over now to the Africans."

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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