Terrorists with Guitars on Trial

The trial on the neonazi rock group will give rise to active struggle against right-extremist groups
A juridical precedent has been established in Germany. A neonazi rock group has been declared a criminal gang for the first time in the history; members of the musical group have been sentenced to various periods of imprisonment. Within the period of 1993 - 2001, Landser secretly released four records. A 38-year-old leader of the group was sentenced to three years and four months of imprisonment; the bass, 25, and the drummer, 27, were passed suspended sentences of 1.9 years on each. Each man will have to work for 90 hours in social institutions overseeing Germans of Jewish origin.

Federal Prosecutor Joachim Lampe says the trial on the neonazi rock group will give rise to active struggle against right-extremist groups. Judge Wolfgang Weisbodt grounded the sentence passed on the musicians with the fact that the rock group used the music for inciting ethnic hatred.

The name of the group, Landser, means "home guard"; the group was founded in 1991, however it was banned right after the first public concert and went underground. The musicians made records in Sweden, the US and Great Britain and further circulated them among neonazis in Germany. The musical group became really very popular among the neonazis.

All the records were released under aggressive names, and the music sounded aggressive as well. The musicians adhered to the Third Reich racial ideology and urged for fighting against democracy and Israel. The neonazi musicians called themselves terrorists with guitars and wanted to set spiritual outburst in the society.

There are several neonazi rock groups in Russia; they are popular among skinheads. Sometimes law enforcement authorities focus on activity of these groups. For instance, recently Sergey Troitsky, the leader of Korrozia Metalla (Metal Corrosion) musical group known by his nickname "Spider" was forcedly taken to a mental hospital in the framework of a criminal case initiated on the charges of ethnic hatred inciting.