Antifa East/Lina E. | Lina E. free for the time being: Karlsruhe lifts detention

Lina E. during her own trial at the Dresden Higher Regional Court in 2023 Photo: Sebastian Kahnert/dpa Lina E. must be released from custody. The order of preventive detention against the anti-fascist was temporarily lifted by a decision on Wednesday, as a spokesman for the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe announced upon request (ref. 2 BvR 1681/26). At the end of June, the Dresden Higher Regional Court (OLG) ordered a six-month detention after Lina E. refused to testify as a witness in the currently ongoing second so-called Antifa East trial.

After the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) rejected E.'s complaint, her lawyer filed a constitutional complaint in Karlsruhe. Lawyer Erkan Zünbül emphasized that no decision has been made on this yet. "The Federal Constitutional Court recognized that there are significant constitutional questions open here and acted consistently by temporarily restoring our client's freedom." The current interim order therefore applies until the decision on the constitutional complaint is made, but for a maximum of six months.

Preventive detention is a legal means of pressure that is intended to force a person to give a witness statement. Lina E. was also fined 750 euros. She was supposed to testify at the end of June in a trial against seven anti-fascists who are accused of forming a criminal organization and committing a total of 13 violent crimes against actual or suspected neo-Nazis. Some of these are acts in which she herself is said to have been involved.

After a trial before the same court, E. was sentenced to several years in prison in 2023, in which her very long pre-trial detention was taken into account. E. had only been at large for four weeks at the time of her summons in June. dpa/nd

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