Skip to main content
Monday, November 9, 2026Nov 9

German neo-Nazi who fled to avoid prison arrested in Hungary

FILE - In this Jan 12, 2009 file photo Horst Mahler waits prior to the lawsuit in a court room of the higher regional court in Munich, southern Germany. (AP Photo/Christof Stache, file)
FILE - In this Jan 12, 2009 file photo Horst Mahler waits prior to the lawsuit in a court room of the higher regional court in Munich, southern Germany. (AP Photo/Christof Stache, file) FILE - In this Jan 12, 2009 file photo Horst Mahler waits prior to the lawsuit in a court room of the higher regional court in Munich, southern Germany. (AP Photo/Christof Stache, file)

BERLIN (AP) – A notorious German neo-Nazi has been arrested in Hungary, where he had been seeking asylum after fleeing to avoid serving a prison sentence for Holocaust denial and anti-Semitic incitement, Munich prosecutors said Monday.

Hungary informed German prosecutors that Horst Mahler had been arrested, said Ken Heidenreich, a spokesman for Munich prosecutors. He did not elaborate further.

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 Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States were justified and fined him several thousand euros (dollars).

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.