EU parliament lifts German lawmaker's immunity over Nazi salute image

The European Parliament on Tuesday lifted the immunity of a German far-right lawmaker facing prosecution in his home country for sharing a photo montage of a Nazi salute.

Fellow EU lawmakers stripped Petr Bystron of his protection from prosecution during a plenary session in Strasbourg.

Bystron, of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), is being investigated over a social media post he shared in 2022 after the dismissal of Ukraine's ambassador to Berlin.

"German politicians wave goodbye," he wrote on Twitter, now X, as the caption to a photo montage of politicians with their arms outstretched in what resembled Nazi salutes.

A lawmaker in the German Bundestag at the time, Bystron was elected to the European Parliament in 2024. In a separate case last year he was forced to deny allegations he accepted money to spread Russian propaganda.