Merkel urges crackdown on far-right extremists

BERLIN, June 23 (AP): Chancellor Angela Merkel said the German government is "very, very serious" about fighting far-right extremism that presents "a big challenge for all of us" after a man with anti-migrant views allegedly killed a regional official from Merkel's party.

Far-right extremists "need to be fought from the beginning without any taboo," Merkel said Saturday at a gathering of Lutheran Protestants in the western city of Dortmund.

The Germany leader called the slaying of Kassel administrator Walter Luebcke, 65, who was found shot in the head at his home on June 02, "not only a gruesome act, but a big challenge for all of us to check on all levels (of society) for far-right tendencies."

A week ago, police arrested a 45-year-old German man, Stephan Ernst, as the alleged killer. Ernst was known to police as a far-right extremist with convictions for violent crimes dating from the late 1980s to 2009, German media reported. They include a 1993 pipe bomb attack on a refugee shelter.

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer also vowed Saturday to crack down harder on far-right crime, which he said had become "a real danger".