A notorious German neo-Nazi was arrested on Monday in Hungary, where he had been seeking asylum after fleeing to avoid serving a prison sentence for Holocaust denial and antisemitic incitement.
Hungarian police said Horst Mahler was taken into custody in the north-western city of Sopron in the early afternoon.
Mahler, 81, was a founding member of the left-wing Red Army Faction militant group who later turned to the far-right and has had numerous neo-Nazi-related convictions.
In addition, a court in Mainz in 2003 found Mahler guilty of condoning a crime for saying that the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States were justified, and fined him several thousand euro.
He was also convicted in the mid-1970s for Red Army Faction-related activities—including several bank robberies and for helping notorious terrorist Andreas Baader, another founding member of the group, to escape from jail.
He was serving a 10-year sentence for Holocaust denial and antisemitic incitement when a court ruled two years ago that he could leave prison due to serious illness. He was ordered to return to prison late last year, but he refused and fled the country.
The Mitteldeutsche Zeitung newspaper on Monday published a letter from Mahler saying he was asking “the leader of the Hungarian nation, Viktor Orban, to grant me asylum as someone who is being politically persecuted.”
