UPDATE - German neo-Nazi Beate Zschaepe gets life for murders

UPDATES WITH MORE DETAILS ON SENTENCE, EDITS THROUGHOUT

By Ayhan Simsek

MUNICH, Germany (AA) - A German court sentenced neo-Nazi Beate Zschaepe to life in prison Wednesday for the terrorist group NSU’s murders and bomb attacks targeting Turkish immigrants.

At Munich’s Higher Regional Court, Presiding Judge Manfred Goetzl said Zschaepe was guilty of membership in a terrorist group and complicity in 10 murders and two bomb attacks committed by the neo-Nazi group.

Goetzl ruled out any parole before she serves 15 years -- the average life term in Germany -- stressing the “exceptional severity of the crimes” she committed.

A parole court will decide after this period whether Zschaepe is eligible to apply for release.

In similar terrorism cases, German parole courts extended prison sentences to up to 26 years.

-Shadowy group NSU

The National Socialist Underground (NSU) killed eight Turkish immigrants, a Greek citizen, and a German policewoman between 2000 and 2007, but the murders remained long unsolved. The group also carried out bomb attacks targeting shops owned by immigrants in Cologne.

During the five-year trial, Zschaepe denied any role in the killings and bomb attacks and tried to lay the blame on her two late colleagues in the far-right terror cell.

But her defense team failed to present any strong evidence to dispute the accusations.

The NSU was only revealed in 2011, when two members -- Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Bohnhardt -- died after an unsuccessful bank robbery and police found guns and extreme-right literature in their apartment.

Zschaepe, the group’s last surviving member, has provided no new information about the NSU, and major questions over the murders remain unanswered.

-Institutonal racism alleged

The scandal surrounding the neo-Nazi NSU has led to accusations of institutional racism in Germany.

Until 2011, Germany’s police and intelligence services ruled out any racial motive for the murders and instead treated immigrant families as suspects, questioning them over alleged connections with mafia groups and drug traffickers.

While recent revelations have shown that Germany’s domestic intelligence agency had dozens of informants who had contacts with the NSU suspects, officials insisted that they had no prior information about the NSU terror cell and its suspected role in the killings.