The founder of the far-right group Pegida has claimed he did not write public postings in his Facebook account in which asylum seekers in Germany were described as “cattle” and “scum”.
Lutz Bachmann (43), a former chef and PR consultant, appeared before a Dresden court on Tuesday to answer charges of incitement resulting from the posts from September 2014.
During the first day of proceedings the Pegida founder remained silent as the Saxon state prosecutor detailed remarks made in response to an article posted by a Facebook friend of Mr Bachmann about conditions in a German asylum hostel.
The public response from Mr Bachmann’s account was: “Ach, you believe the press when they show hypocritical sympathy for the vermin? You should talk to people in the social welfare offices about how these scum behave.”
Prosecutor Tobias Uhlemann said that, with the remarks, Mr Bachmann had disturbed the public peace, attacked the human dignity of refugees and incited hatred against them.
“That is punishable as sedition,” he said, a charge that carries a sentence of between three months and five years in prison.
Mr Bachmann’s defence lawyer, Katja Reichel, asked for the case to be dismissed, saying her client had no chance of a fair trial. She also denied that her client was behind the posts and asked the court for a Facebook technical analyst to be called as a witness.
Prosecutor Tobias Uhlemann said a technician was not necessary, producing a recording of Mr Bachmann from a Pegida rally in which he said of the posts: “I only used remarks we’ve all used down the pub.”
This is not the first time Mr Bachmann has been before the court’s presiding judge, Hans Hlavka. The two met last in February 2010 when the judge handed down a two-year suspended sentence for possession of 90 grams of cocaine. Further run-ins with the law for theft and assault meant the suspended sentence extended to the period when the remarks were made.
In recent months Mr Bachmann has described asylum seekers as “criminal invaders” and “rapefugees”. At Monday’s weekly rally in Dresden, he referenced a poem mocking the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, that has triggered legal action for a German comedian.
“Imagine the outcry . . . if that poem had been written by me,” said Mr Bachmann to the crowd. “I would have been immediately arrested on stage, placed in custody . . . [and] executed.”
