Once again on secret service officer Temme

The trial day was mostly taken up by the continued questioning of secret service officer Andreas Temme from Kassel and of his wife. As reported earlier, victims’ counsel had found in the case file several phone calls of Temmes with his colleagues and a phone call of his wife with her sister which call into question Temme’s claims that he had seen nothing, heard nothing and done nothing.

The trial day began, however, with a motion brought by accused Zschäpe herself that further witness testimony only be taken after attorney Mathias Grasel is appointed as fourth defense attorney. Grasel had earlier visited Zschäpe in jail and counseled her on certain issues there. As yet there is no formal motion that he be appointed either instead of Anja Sturm, whom Zschäpe wished to have relieved, or as a fourth counsel. Apparently, the presiding judge had had the idea of having Sturm continue as forced counsel against Zschäpe’s will and at the same time heed her wish to have a trusted counsel in the trial by appointing Gradel. Zschäpe has taken up this idea today. The court will decide on Grasel’s appointment within the next few days. However, her motion to interrupt the trial was quickly rejected – in any event, if he is appointed, Grasel will not have the time to get a read of the case file before his first day in court.
After this short intermezzo, the court finished the questionin of a former friend of Uwe Mundlos’, who had not been able to finish his testimony on 12 May 2015. His testimony today yielded nothing new.

Next up was Temme’s wife. In a telephone conversation with her sister, she had inter alia talked about a plastic bag which, according to witness testimony, her husband had carried with him on the day of the murder, a fact he had adamantly denied in his police interviews. On the phone, Mrs. Temme stated that she had always told him not to carry plastic bags. When the conversation was replayed in court, many listeners were quite shocked to hear how she denigrated Turkish people in a rather horrible manner and joked about the murder of Halit Yozgat. This fact concerning his family fit the picture that dubious secret service officer Temme had already painted of himself in court. The question of the plastic bag, however, did not bring much new.

What Mrs. Temme did testify is that in the months before the murder, her husband had often surfed the internet at home with his laptop in the evenings. This is another piece of evidence showing that his story according to which he had visited the internet café of the Yozgat family, contrary to specific instructions by the office, to visit chatting websites is a lie.

Temme himself was well prepared for his testimony, had used the press to find out all publically available information, including on the intercepted phone calls, and answered all questions with prepared-sounding platitudes.

After Temme’s testimony, the father of murder victim Halit Yozgat made a statement and inter alia moved that the court a site visit to the café in Kassel, which will show that Temme’s claim to not have seen the dead body of Halit Yozgat when he left the café is a lie. Mr. Yozgat expressed the thoughts of many present in the courtroom when he asked “This man, Mr. Temme, is lying. We all know that he is lying. Why don’t we want to see the truth?”