(NewsInsights.org) – Stephan Balliet, a convicted killer serving a life sentence after he attempted to storm a synagogue in Halle, Germany, on Yom Kipper in 2019, returned to a courtroom in the regional center of Magdeburg on Thursday, February 22. Four days later, Judge Simone Henze-von Staden handed down an additional sentence of seven years and victim compensation totaling €23,000 for an armed attempted prison break in December 2022.
Balliet testified on Thursday about how he constructed a gun using ballpoint pen parts, wire, and batteries. He took two guards hostage after bluffing and telling them the single-shot weapon was actually a submachine gun. He forced them to unlock several locked checkpoints, threatening to kill them if they didn’t comply.
He made it to the vehicle gate, but the guards couldn’t open it on their own authority. Balliet made more ultimatums, but officials wouldn’t open the gate. So the convict fired his weapon at it, hoping the blast might force it open. When he did, the guards swarmed him.
Neither guard was injured in the incident, but Balliet was while the guards subdued him. However, one of the two hostages suffered from severe post-traumatic stress disorder and had to resign. Judge Henze-von Staden ordered the convict to pay compensation to both victims.
Prison officials knew that Balliet had skills in making field-expedient weapons because he had used improvised explosive devices during his attack on the synagogue in 2019. However, when the judge questioned him during the trial about where he had obtained the powder for the cartridges for his weapon in a high-security prison facility, Balliet answered that it was a “Professional secret” and refused to say more, according to Volksstimme.
The judge also asked whether the prisoner would attempt to escape again. Balliet replied, “I would like to say that every living being wants to live in freedom.” He told the judge the arrest of a far-right cell in November 2022 that included German government officials inspired the timing of his escape.
Copyright 2024, NewsInsights.org
