Mainz, Germany - Three far-right men were given suspended prison terms Friday for a vicious, racist attack on two immigrants from Africa that marred a country wine festival in Germany last summer. A Sudanese man, 39, who was working at the festival, was clubbed to the ground with a wine bottle. An Egyptian, 39, who tried to rescue his co-worker, lost a finger when he was slashed with the jagged edge of a broken bottle.
The court in the city of Mainz handed down terms of 8 to 18 months on three attackers, convicting them of causing grave bodily harm, but suspended the terms conditional on the men not getting into further trouble.
A teenaged defendant was sentenced to 80 hours of community service.
The men must pay 8,000 euros in compensation to the victims. Sentence was to be passed later on a fifth accused.
The August 19 attack in the wine-growing town of Guntersblum occurred on the same day as an attack on Indian men in the eastern German town of Muegeln. Both racist assaults sickened Germany.
Four of the men, known associates of a local neo-Nazi group, had admitted uttering racist swear-words including "nigger." Defence lawyers denied there was any neo-nazi Motive.
The accused claimed they had been very drunk and felt that the two immigrants were "provoking" them. They were tried in a closed, youth court at Mainz because one of them was a minor at the time of the offence.
