On the Mehmet Kubaşik murder case

After the challenges against all judges had been denied as unfounded, the presiding judge quickly returned to the task at hand. The trial day was devoted to the murder of Mehmet Kubaşik on 4 April 2006 in Dortmund, with several police officers testifying as witnesses. Kubaşik’s widow and two of his children, all of whom have joined the proceedings as private prosecutors, were in attendance.

An in-depth questioning of these witnesses proved difficult, however, as the testimony of another witness of central importance for the case, who had originally been called to testify yesterday, had been postponed. The witness had seen two likely suspects “either Junkies or Nazis“, directly before the murder. Thus the police officers testifying today could not be asked questions concerning the treatment of this witness and her testimony. The officers will have to appear in court again, victims‘ counsel for the Kubaşik family have already announced that they will have a number of questions.

Witness counsel for the Yozgat family moved that a witness be called to testify regarding the Kubaşik murder case: according to the motion, the witness had seen Uwe Mundlos, Uwe Böhnhardt and Beate Zschäpe a few days bevore the murder being shown something on a plot of land by a brawny Skinhead. If she testifies the same way in court, this could prove quite important for the further proceedings. On the one hand, her testimony will then show quite clearly what victims‘ counsel and antifascist groups had long suspected, namely that „the Three“ had support from local Nazi scenes in carrying out their murders and bombing attacks. On the other hand, her testimony will show that Zschäpe personally appeared at one of the crime scenes, which again shows her to be a member of the NSU on an equal footing with the two men.

The questioning of police officers showed a significant change on the behavior of the presiding judge, who showed a lot more empathy with the family members of the victim than he had at the beginning of the trial.

Two neighbors of the NSU flat in the Frühlingsstraße in Zwickau also testified. Like others who hasd testified earlier, they had seen Beate Zschäpe come running from the direction of the burning house shortly after the start of the fire on 4 November 2011.

At the end of the trial day, Carsten Schultze surprised the parties by announcing that he will answer questions of the Wohlleben defense after all. The court will fix a date for when this is to happen. By contrast, Holger Gerlach has not yet announced whether or not he is also willing to answer questions – his defense counsel had intimated that this was a possibility shortly before the summer break.