Neuss, Germany, Nov 26, (dpa/GNA) – A former European lawmaker from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), received a fine on Wednesday, linked to allegations of shoplifting and assault.
The Neuss District Court fined Gunnar Beck, who served in the European Parliament between 2019 and 2024, €3,600 ($4,160) for resisting law enforcement officials.
The 60-year-old had lodged an appeal against a penalty order amounting to €12,000.
According to the indictment, Beck was caught stealing cosmetics in a department store in the western German city of Neuss near Dusseldorf in October 2022.
Beck, who was previously convicted of misusing a title after wrongly passing himself off as a professor, allegedly used a pipette to transfer creams and lotions from test samples into containers and then put them in his bag.
A security guard observed him on the surveillance monitor and alerted his colleagues at the exit. After being held up, he allegedly lashed out, kicking and injuring a guard, according to the indictment.
Testifying in court, the security guards involved in the case said, they could no longer remember the incident. “I don’t remember, it was so long ago,” said one of them.
Beck denied the shoplifting. However, the 60-year-old was convicted of violently resisting the police officers who were called to the scene.
The European Parliament had previously lifted Beck’s parliamentary immunity.
GNA