On Enrico Theile’s strategy as a witness

The first witness today was a federal criminal police detective who had questioned witness Enrico Theile. According to the indictment, Theile was involved in providing the Ceska pistol to “the Three”. In his testimony in court, Theile, as many Nazi witnesses before him, had answered evasively and claimed not to remember anything (see the reports of 28 April and 2 July 2014). Now the detective who had questioned him reported on Theile’s police interview.

Above all, his testimony today concerned one sentence contained in the minutes of that interview which Theile claimed not to have uttered: When asked why, after the uncovering of the NSU, he had been afraid of being arrested, Theile had answered that this was because “all the weapons had come from Müller.” According to the indictment, Theile had received the weapon from Müller and passed it on, via Länger, to the proprietor of the Nazi shop “Madleys”, who then gave the gun to Wohlleben and Schultze. The witness today confirmed that Theile had made the statement exactly as contained in the minutes. In addition, it became clear that Theile had lied from the very beginning, especially as to his knowledge concerning the Ceska pistol. Theile’s claims not to have had anything to do with the sale of the gun are not believable at all, his statement in court is an obvious case of perjury.

The older brother of André and Maik Eminger – who in contrast to his brothers is not active in the Nazi scene – relied on his right, as brother of an accused, to refuse to testify. In his statement to the police, he had tried to downplay his brothers’ Nazi activities.