Lies and Trivialization Deluxe – Hendrik Lasch and his “rightwing conservative” friend Mundlos.

The first witness today was a psychiatrist who had issued an expert opinion on one of the young men who had been severely injured by the Keupstraße nail bomb (on his testimony see the report of 20 January 2015). Today’s witness showed once again the extent of the psychological damage wreaked by the bomb. Still in 2012, the young man had still suffered from a full-blown post-traumatic stress disorder with trouble concentrating, irritability, recurring nightmares and flashbacks, still in 2012, everyday occurrences like bikes with packs on them led to severe anxiety.

The next witness was Hendrik Lasch, another member of the Nazi scene in Chemnitz and a friend of Uwe Mundlos’ beginning in the mid-1990s. He too tried very hard not to give up anything relevant. Presiding judge Götzl reacted by repeating his questions again and again – but not by at least threatening fines or detention for contempt of court, despite the fact that Lasch’s answers quite constituted an obvious refusal to testify.

Lasch stated that he had “nothing negative to say” about Mundlos, whom he described as quite humorous – and as “politically active”, upon questioning: as “rightwing conservative”. It took several repeated questions by the presiding judge for Lasch to admit that one could maybe speak of a “hardline rightwing” view.

The rest of his testimony was similarly cagey and fruitless: He claimed not to have heard anything about explosives, guns or the like, that he had known “Blood & Honour” only via acquaintances. Once, Lasch accidentally made a relevant statement in trying to evade a question: he claimed not to remember how he had kept in contact with “the Three” in Chemnitz – after all, the contact had not changed at all after they had gone on the run from the police. He thus confirmed the evidence heard so far, which shows that Zschäpe, Mundlos and Böhnhardt had moved openly within the Nazi scene in Chemnitz.

Lasch also claimed not to have known Ralf Wohlleben. This is one of the evidentiary claims of the Wohlleben defense. However, given the obvious and total stonewalling by Lasch, his statement too will not help exculpate Wohlleben.

Victims’ counsel were able to catch Lasch in an obvious lie: at first, he claimed not to have known who the supporters of Zschäpe, Mundlos and Böhnhardt in Chemnitz had been. Confronted with testimony of other witnesses, he had to admit to having met Mundlos at least once in the apartment of “Blood and Honour“ activist Thomas Rothe.

At the end of the trial day, presiding judge Götzl stated that psychiatrist Prof. Nedopil had examined accused Zschäpe and had not found any reason to doubt her capacity to stand trial, but had suggested a lighter trial load to help her recuperate. Accordingly, the court will only sit for two days a week in the next three weeks, the trial days of Tuesday, 10, 17 and 24 March have been canceled. After 26 March, there will be a two week Easter vacation; it remains to be seen whether the court will again sit for three days weekly afterwards.

The “Initiative for clearing up the murder of Burak B” held a demonstration in front of the court today. On 5 April 2012, Burak Bektaş was shot and killed at close range by an unknown gunman in the streets of Berlin, two of his friends were severely injured. Drawing upon the lessons of the NSU murders, the initiative finds that a racist motive is rather likely and calls for an active investigation – for more see (in German) www.burak.blogsport.de.