A Frankfurt court sentenced a self-proclaimed neo-Nazi to life in prison for the murder of a local politician in a case prosecutors called the first political assassination by a far-right extremist since World War II.

Stephan Ernst was found guilty of the murder of Walter Lübcke, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right party. Authorities said that the 47-year-old had a history of criminal behavior, which dates back to 1993.

Prosecutors described Ernst as a neo-Nazi sympathizer who had a deep hatred for refugees. During the trial, prosecutors alleged that the murder was purely motivated by Ernst's "xenophobia."

Ernst killed the politician, who supported the government's refugee policy, in June 2019. He was murdered at his home near the central German city of Kassel. Ernst was arrested two weeks later and confessed to the crime. He retracted his statement a few weeks later.

Lübcke was a staunch supporter of refugee rights. He had traveled through hundreds of refugee shelters in 2015, after hundreds of thousands of people sought asylum in Germany during the conflicts in Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq.

During one town hall meeting, Lübcke old local far-right groups that offering refuge and housing was the "German and Christian" thing to do. He told everyone that was against the policy to "leave this country."

Before the murder, Ernst faced charges for the attempted murder of a refugee from Iraq in 2016. In 1993, Ernst was convicted of an attempted bombing of a refugee shelter.

A prosecutor for Ernst's case said that Germany must send a message that it will not tolerate such actions from the now emboldened far-right camp.

"From our point of view, as soon as a politician is involved, as is the case here, we must all be on our guard to ensure that others do not ignore the state's monopoly on the use of force and take it upon themselves to kill representatives of the German people," the prosecutor said.

The killing of Lübcke had marked a turning point for the country and its fight against the threat posed by domestic neo-Nazis. Last year, German authorities discovered that some far-right groups had penetrated its security services - including its local police departments and its elite special forces.