Plzeň court orders extradition of extremist Liebichová to Germany
The regional court in Plzeň ruled on the extradition of 55-year-old German right-wing extremist Marli Sveni Liebichová to Germany. The judgment is not yet final.
Plzeň court orders Liebichová's extradition, she retains deadline for appeal
The regional court in Plzeň ruled on the extradition of 55-year-old German right-wing extremist Marli Sveni Liebichová to Germany, where she is to serve her sentence. According to ceskenoviny.cz, the decision is not yet final – Liebichová retained the deadline to lodge an appeal, whilst the prosecutor waived this right.
Liebichová was apprehended on 9 April near Aš in the Cheb region on the basis of a European arrest warrant. The arrest was carried out by detectives nicknamed skull hunters. Since then she has been held in custody at Plzeň prison; the court today changed her preliminary custody to extradition custody.
Conviction in Germany and gender change
The court in Halle convicted Liebichová in 2023 – then still under the name Sven Liebich – to one year and six months' imprisonment for incitement, defamation, insults and breach of copyright. The appeal was unsuccessful. Liebichová was to serve her sentence in the women's prison in Saxon Kamenitz (Chemnitz), but did not report there last year.
She officially changed her gender on 1 November 2024 after submitting her request on 1 August of the same year. According to the media, she did so in part to gain access to a women's prison. According to the defence, the relevant registry office in Germany filed a motion to reverse the gender and name change – these proceedings have not yet concluded.
Liebichová's case sparked a debate in Germany about the self-determination law, which came into force in November 2024. The law allows people to change their official gender registration without psychological assessments and court proceedings; a declaration at the registry office is sufficient.
Liebichová fears men's prison
Before the judgment was announced, Liebichová raised an objection to bias against the presiding judge of the panel, judge Ivana Růžičková, and demanded her recusal from the proceedings. The panel found no bias and did not recuse Růžičková from the hearing.
Liebichová strongly disagrees with extradition to Germany. "I do not want to be extradited because I am afraid that I will end up in a prison facility with men, in a men's prison, which would be discrimination from a human rights perspective. Because I am known in the media, I will not only be abused there, but I will have to endure very inappropriate behaviour towards my body and my person and I am afraid they will kill me there," she said in court in May.
She also described as discrimination the fact that German authorities, according to her, require a psychological assessment before admission to a women's prison – something that does not happen with other female prisoners, she stated.
Six previous convictions in Germany
Although Liebichová claims she is not a racist, she has been convicted six times previously in Germany for insults, vilification, defamation and public incitement to racial discrimination. She also fears that she would share prison space with inmates of other nationalities, who according to her are predominantly from countries intolerant of transgender issues.
Two men and two women from the prison service escorted her into the courtroom. In the corridor before journalists, she shouted in German and English at male guards not to touch her. As at the previous hearing in May, she wore a tight-fitting shirt with a leopard print, bright red nail varnish and red lips. She arrived with a greying moustache and a new hairstyle – on her shaved head she wears only a strip of short hair running from her forehead to her nape, partially coloured red.
Source: Google News CZ — Crime (cs)