Most of today’s trial proceedings concerned the murder in Heilbronn. Witnesses were two investigators, Mr. Tiefenbacher of the office of criminal investigation of Baden-Wuerttemberg and Mr. Giedke of the federal office of criminal investigation. Giedke’s testimony was continued from last week. Tiefenbacher had authored the final report of the Baden Wuerttemberg police in February of 2012; that report in turn had been the basis of Giedke’s report. Their testimony revealed that the actual investigations had been conducted by other officers and that Tiefenbacher and Giedke had simply summarized their reports.

Tiefenbacher had, for example, written that it was to be assumed that at least one perpetrator had knowledge of Heilbronn that [signalisiert] a deeper connection to that city. Asked about that statement today, he said that it came from the colleagues in the profiling division; he had not shared their view then and was unable to comment on it. His proclaimed doubts had not, however, found their way into his report. Tiefenbacher also claimed to have simply copied statements such as “a witness saw a Neger [a derogatory German term for a black person] giving an item to four Neger sitting in a car.” Even leaving aside the racist tone which was apparently normal for police officers to use – it becomes clear that the final reports did not play any role in the taking of evidence.

The testimony of both witnesses was thus over quickly. The police officer who did the actual investigation will have to be heard as a witness.

At the end of the proceedings, victims’ counsel entered into the case file the written testimony of the witness who stated that in 2004, accused Wohlleben had given him a pistol in exchange for a tool used in stealing cars (see the reports of 14 and 8 January 2014). The witness had testified in front of a federal prosecutor on 21 March 2013 in Poland. The federal prosecution had opposed his being called as a witness and claimed that there was no connection to the trial in Munich.

The written statement – which victims‘ counsel had received against the wishes of the federal prosecution and which the court had not been provided with until now – proves the opposite: not only does the witness confirm his statements concerning the weapons trade with Wohlleben. He also states that Wohlleben had been accompanied by another man; in a photo array, he is quite certain in identifying Enrico Theile as that man. According to the indictment, Theile was involved in the provision of the silenced Ceska to the NSU, he will testify in Munich in the near future. If Theile was involved in the trade in 2004, this would point to that trade being done on behalf of the NSU.

The federal prosecution’s method of again and again keeping evidence from the court and parties and claiming that it has no connection to the Munich trial has once again proved unsuccessful.