Court rules Czech Republic can extradite Neo-Nazi Liebich to Germany

A Czech court has given the go-ahead for the extradition of convicted far-right extremist Marla Svenja Liebich to Germany.

The Higher Regional Court in Prague rejected the 55-year-old's appeals against extradition, a court spokeswoman said on Tuesday. 

It is expected that Liebich will be transferred to the correctional facility in the German city of Chemnitz within the next 10 days, the senior prosecutor said. The decision on where Liebich will serve her sentence will be made there.

Liebich was arrested on April 9 near the Czech Republic's border with Germany after a months-long Europe-wide manhunt.

A regional court in Plzen ruled in early June that Liebich should be handed over to the German authorities to serve her prison sentence. The right-wing extremist was sentenced in Germany to a total prison term of one year and six months without probation for incitement of the public, defamation, and insult.

Liebich was convicted in Germany in July 2023, at that time as a man named Sven. After the conviction, she had her gender legally changed from male to female. In addition, her name was changed from Sven to Marla Svenja. 

Critics viewed this as an abuse of Germany's Self-Determination Act.

Liebich stated that she did not want to be brought to Germany because she feared she might lose her life in a German men's prison. She also filed a motion to recuse the presiding judge who was handling the case. Both motions have now been rejected.

Theoretically, Liebich's last resort would be to appeal to the Constitutional Court in Brno, but this is considered unlikely.