Neo-nazi who hated foreigners shot Briton in Berlin
Self-styled ‘White Knight’ killed Oxford-educated lawyer with a sawn-off shotgun outside bar
AN OXFORD-EDUCATED lawyer was killed in Berlin by a neo-nazi who hated English being spoken in Germany, an inquest has heard.
Luke Holland, 31, was shot by selfstyled “White Knight” Rolf Zielezinski, 63, as he stood outside a bar where he had been socialising with friends.
Zielezinski, who was wearing a black leather jacket and cowboy hat, had been heard telling people how angry he was that nobody spoke German anymore and that he “hated foreigners”.
He was seen standing over Mr Holland’s body with a sawn-off shotgun before walking calmly away.
The unemployed construction worker, a father of three, was jailed for 11 years and seven months after being convicted of murder. Mr Holland’s par- ents told an inquest in Stockport yesterday that they had fought an uphill battle to get justice for their son, claiming they had been “left on their own”.
They were forced to hire their own lawyer to persuade German officials to increase the charge from manslaughter to murder and said later that they did not know how they would ever get over the death of their only son. The coroner heard that Mr Holland was a “bright young man” and “extremely ambitious”. He was fluent in Japanese and worked for legal firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in London. But he had moved to Berlin to help build up a new business.
Mr Holland died on his way to hospital after suffering pellet wounds to his abdomen in the September 2015 attack. German Police later arrested Zielezinski at a right-wing rally and found Nazi memorabilia at his flat.
Mr Holland’s father, Phillip, 63, a retired communications engineer from Stockport, told the inquest that the Foreign Office gave them “no help” and instead sent a 25-page document telling them how to deal with a death abroad. He and his wife Rita were forced to run a gauntlet of Nazi thugs who screamed in their faces as they went to and from court to hear Zielezinski’s trial. “It was really distressing but we just wanted justice for our boy,” he told the coroner.
Alison Mutch, the coroner, paid tribute to Mr and Mrs Holland as she recorded a verdict of unlawful killing.
After the inquest Mrs Holland said: “I just want to make it clear how this hatred, this terrorist has affected so many people’s lives.”