Inter alia on the NSU videos

Today the court again considered several different aspects of the case.

The trial day started with two expert witnesses reporting on the Ismail Yaşas murder. According to them, this crime had been very similar to the other murders: First the killers shot their victim in the head; after he had fallen to the ground, they fired three more shots at him. The evidence leads one to assume that a silencer was again used and that the gun was fired from inside a plastic bag.

A police officer from Zwickau reported on calls to the emergency services after the fire in the Frühlingsstraße. There had been no such call from Zschäpe. The defense had claimed that Zschäpe had indeed reported the fire; they referred to a database entry showing a failed connection and claimed that this was her call. This question will likely require further evidence.

The next issue discussed was the videos in which the NSU claimed responsibility for their crimes. A federal investigator from Hamburg reported that the photos of Süleyman Taşköprü used in that video had been shot before other people had arrived at the crime scene, i.e. by the killers themselves.

Another federal investigator had dealt with the newspaper articles used in the video. Copies of these articles were also found in the Frühlingsstraße. Zschäpe’s finger prints were only found on articles not used in the video, but given that the articles were archived together, it must be assumed that she also knew of the articles used in the video. Also found in the rubble of the Frühlingsstraße were two earlier versions of the video, which contained music from Nazi rock band “Noie Werte” (“New Values”) – lead singer of that band is Steffen Hammer, an attorney and a former officemate of Wohlleben defence attorney Schneiders. These earlier videos were created in 2001 and showed all crimes committed until then. These videos already show the NSU logo, showing that the organization already existed at this time. A further document, created in 2007, was a so called “NSU letter” in which the NSU asked “comrades” for support in their fight.

The testimony of an expert witness on the murder weapons, in particular on the Ceska pistol, was not finished today – before continuing his testimony, the expert will send several photos to the court to be sent on to the parties.

On the evening of Wednesday, several victims’ counsel had issued a press release ([link] in German) on the topic of institutional racism. This was triggered by two emails sent by Joseph Wilfling, the lead investigator of the Munich murders, to a member of the parliamentary enquiry commission in the Bavarian parliament. In these mails, Wilfling insulted the parliamentarian and once again showed exactly the kind of mind-set that had led to the police conducting a very thoroughly one-sided and failed investigation over the span of several years.