The trans neo-Nazi was caught (in men’s clothes and with a shaved head). Tried to escape on a scooter

The extremist became famous in Germany when she started presenting herself as a trans woman after being convicted and thus obtaining the right to serve a sentence in a women’s prison. The case was seen as manipulation of the gender self-determination law.

A neo-Nazi from eastern Germany — who identified as a trans woman after being sentenced to prison — was detained by police in the Czech Republic after several months on the run, German authorities announced on Thursday.

Marla Svenja Liebich (formerly Sven Liebich) was convicted in 2023 of inciting ethnic hatred, libel and defamation, all crimes committed when she was still using the male name Sven.

According to several German newspapers, Liebich belonged to a neo-Nazi group called Blood and Honor. According to authorities, the arrest warrant against him was executed in the city of Krásná, around 100 kilometers east of Prague.

Liebich still tried to escape from electric scooter before being captured. According to the German newspaper Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, the first to report the arrest, Liebich was wearing men’s clothing and had a shaved head at the time of capture.

Now, it is expected that your extradition to Germany.

Sentence in women’s prison

In August 2025, the case attracted the attention of the press and the political class, after Liebich was given the right to serve time in a women’s prison, in a case that raised debate about the application of the country’s gender self-determination law.

However, at the end of this, Liebich disappeared before turning himself in to authorities to serve his prison sentencelater posting on social media that he was out of the country.

The 55-year-old neo-Nazi changed name and gender in the documents at the end of 2024, while appealing the conviction in the first instance. To ask for the amendment, he invoked the Gender Self-Determination Lawwhich came into force on November 1 of the same year.

Celebrated at the time by defenders of the rights of LGBTQ+ people, the new law now allows anyone to change their name and sex in the civil registry by simply self-declaring in the registry, without the need to present expert or psychiatric reports, nor to undergo hormonal treatments, as was the case previously.

Before the change, he denounced “gender ideology”

Liebich’s gender change was reported by the press in early 2025 and raised doubts about his motivations, in addition to raising accusations of manipulating the new law as a form of public provocation.

When he still used the name Sven, Liebich spoke out critically against what he called “gender ideology”, in addition to insulting participants in the pride march as “parasites”. He also warned against what he called “transfascismo” and sold souvenirs with the phrase: “There are no trans children, only idiot parents.”

It can be said that Liebich is “not a woman”

After changing the documents, Liebich began suing media outlets that reported the gender change and treated it as masculine.

In one of these cases, he lost to journalist Julian Reichelt, responsible for the Nius portal and former director of the tabloid Bild, who was recognized, in the name of freedom of expression, the right to assert on a social network that Liebich “is not a woman”.

“Anyone who follows the coverage of neo-Nazi Sven Liebich can only come to one conclusion: the previous government managed to legally force practically the entire German press to tell the untruth and make grotesquely false statements. Sven Liebich is not a woman,” Reichelt wrote in X in July.

Another case, involving the magazine Der Spiegel and reported to the German Press Council, was dropped; the organization considered it likely that Liebich had altered the civil registration data in bad faith “to provoke and ridicule the State”.

It was not the first time that Liebich appeared in the news because of controversy or provocations. In 2020, in another trial, for defamation, Liebich appeared in court with a mask that read the word “gag”.

Sentence of one year and six months — but in which prison?

Now, with the arrest, it is still unclear what type of prison Liebich will serve his time in. The sentence to one year and six months in prison only became final in May 2025, after the gender change.

Initially, before the escape, Liebich was supposed to serve her sentence in the JVA women’s prison in Chemnitz, in the state of Saxony. But Liebich’s legal situation continues to preoccupy authorities regarding the issue of gender registration. Just four weeks ago, the Halle District Court announced its intention to decide whether Changes to Liebich’s first name and gender can be reversed.

The district of Saalekreis in the southern state of Saxony-Anhalt, where the birth registration was changed, began legal proceedings in December. The court stated that the action is not public and that Liebich should still have the opportunity to speak out during the process.