Far-right extremist Liebich to be extradited from Czech Republic to Germany
The district court in Plzeň has ordered the extradition of convicted far-right extremist Marla Svenja Liebich to Germany. The ruling is not yet final.
Far-right extremist Liebich to be extradited from Czech Republic to Germany
The district court in Plzeň has ordered the extradition of far-right extremist Marla Svenja Liebich to Germany. The news agency dpa and Czech portal Deník N reported on this. Liebich himself stated during the proceedings that he does not wish to be extradited. He has several days to lodge an appeal, which is why the ruling is not yet final.
The regional court in Prague would have to decide on any appeal. The Czech state prosecution also has the right to appeal. Before the verdict was announced, Liebich filed an objection of bias against the chair of the panel, which was rejected.
The 55-year-old extremist was detained on 9 April this year in the Czech town of Šonov near Aš, close to the German border, after months of an all-European search. Before the Plzeň court, he testified that he does not want to be transferred to Germany because he fears for his life in a German men's prison. He is currently held in a remand prison in Plzeň, where conditions are considered strict.
After his detention in the Czech Republic, Liebich refused extradition. The German state prosecutor in Halle in Saxony-Anhalt subsequently filed a request for extradition, which the Plzeň court has now granted.
Once the ruling becomes final, Liebich is to be handed over to German authorities and transferred to a prison in Chemnitz. It is expected that only a few days will elapse after the ruling becomes final before his handover.
In Germany, Liebich was sentenced in July 2023 – then still under the name Sven – by the district court in Halle to one-and-a-half years imprisonment without suspension for incitement to hatred, defamation and insult. Following this sentence, he had his gender changed from male to female and changed his name from Sven to Marla Svenja.
After his detention, Liebich requested financial compensation from certain media outlets for alleged violation of personal rights as a trans person, but eventually withdrew his demands. A complaint to the press council was also unsuccessful and was unanimously rejected as unfounded: it is probable that Liebich "carried out the change of personal status in an abusive manner in order to provoke and ridicule the state". For this reason, the media decided to use male pronouns.
Source: SPIEGEL