Local media reports say victim’s pro-migrant stance could be a motive for the killing

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

German authorities said on Sunday they had arrested a man in connection with the murder of a pro-migrant politician, as media reported the suspect could have links to the far right.

In a joint statement, police and prosecutors said they had taken a 45-year-old man into custody on Saturday over the shooting death in early June of prominent local politician Walter Lübcke, a member of chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU party.

“The arrest came on the basis of DNA evidence and the suspect appeared this afternoon before an investigating judge in Kassel,” the western city where Lübcke was killed, the authorities said.

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They declined to comment on a possible motive, saying they would offer further information in the coming days about the arrest and the investigation’s progress.

However the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily reported that the suspect “comes from the far-right scene”, without providing further details.

The Bild newspaper, citing unnamed investigators, said the suspect “could belong to the rightwing extremist scene”.

Lübcke was shot in the head at close range on the terrace of his home in Kassel, about 160km north-east of Frankfurt.

Investigators say it is unclear why the 65-year-old was killed, but a possible political motive has not been ruled out, given he had previously received numerous death threats.

Lübcke, the head of the city administration in Kassel, had spoken out in defence of migrants at the height of Europe’s refugee crisis in 2015, incurring the fury of the far right.

Since his death, hundreds of posts from social media accounts connected to rightwing extremists applauded his murder.