A 30-year-old suspect was given a one-year suspended prison sentence for his involvement in an antisemitic attack on a Jewish restaurant owner in the city of Chemnitz, Germany, DW reported.
The defendant, identified only as Kevin A., was charged with breaching the peace, property damage and dangerous bodily harm for being one of at least 10 people who threw stones and objects at Jewish restaurant owner Uwe Dziuballa in August 2018, according to DW.
His sentence was surprising to some in the courtroom, given that he had prior convictions for drug dealing and another stone-throwing incident in Hamburg. But the judge argued this should be mitigated due to the defendant having kept a clean record for two years and because Dziuballa escaped mostly unharmed and property damage was only minor, DW reported.
Reports around the incident back in August 2018 initially labeled it an attack by a gang of violent neo-Nazis.
According to those initial reports, a group of approximately a dozen masked individuals threw bottles and stones and then stormed the Schalom restaurant on August 27, causing damage to the building’s façade and shattering a window.
While vandalizing the kosher eatery, the neo-Nazis allegedly shouted “Get out of Germany you Jewish pig.”
This incident came amid clashes in the city, which were allegedly sparked following an August 26 incident when police said a Syrian and an Iraqi had been detained as suspects in the killing of a 35-year-old German man. A German court later sentenced the Syrian asylum seeker to nine and a half years in prison.
After the murder, far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) leader Alexander Gauland had urged a “peaceful revolution” against German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s liberal immigration policy, saying this required banishing politicians and members of the media who support the “Merkel system.”
The chancellor accused AfD of using violent protests over a fatal stabbing blamed on migrants to stir up ethnic tension.
Reuters contributed to this report.