The State Prosecutor has appealed a decision by a Nuremburg court not to try Karl-Heinz Hoffmann, a neo-Nazi activist, for the murder of Jewish publisher Shlomo Levin on December 19, 1980 for lack of evidence. The Prosecutor promised to collect additional evidence implicating Hoffmann in the crime. Hoffmann, 43, headed an extreme rightwing organization, Werksportsgruppe Hoffmann, which masquaraded as a sports club while engaging in acts of violence and anti-Semitic incitement. It has been officially outlawed.
According to Prosecutor Rudolph Brunner, Hoffmann and a female companion, Franzikka Birkmann, ordered Levin’s murder and actively participated in it. The actual shooting was attributed to one Uwe Behrendt who committed suicide in his jail cell in the summer of 1981.
Hoffmann and Behrendt both took military training at a Palestine Liberation Organization camp in Beirut in 1981 and were arrested at Frankfurt airport when they returned from Lebanon. Hoffmann remains in custody because he was found guilty of several minor crimes in other cases.
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