On the right to a speedy trial, and: the bank robbers spoke „Saxon”

Today’s trial day started extremely late and ended with the court sprinting through several witness testimonies – sadly without and real results.

Accused Gerlach had forgotten the trial day and was just on his was to Munich, leading the court to postpone the beginning of the trial to 3:30 in the afternoon – the court felt obligated to still have a trial day at that time because of the right to a speedy trial. The hearing finally started at 4:30 in the afternoon with the testimony of a police officer who had investigated the NSU’s car and mobile home rentals, followed by that of several witnesses of two bank robberies in Stralsund on 7 November 2006 and 18 January 2007.

These testimonies could be conducted very speedily. Their result: two masked men entered the bank, fired shots into the ceiling, took the money and fled. They spoke “Saxon”. It is likely that, for people from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, every South-Eastern dialect would be considered “Saxon”, the presiding did not seem to have the time to ask for more details.

One bank teller did describe the banderoles used in the bank with sufficient detail to allow a comparison to those banderoles found with Zschäpe, Mundlos and Böhnhardt.