Zschäpe’s fourth defense counsel is granted a week to catch up

The trial day began with a longish discussion of Zschäpe’s three “old” defense counsel with their newly assigned colleague Grasel. Inter alia, it seems that they were discussing the seating order. Sturm, Stahl and Herr at first sat down at their usual seats and asked Grasel to take a seat at the edge of the Zschäpe defense – Zschäpe simply sat down next to Grasel.

Grasel’s first motion was that the trial be interrupted for three weeks in order to allow him to catch up with the trial. The court partially granted the motion, canceling all trial days for this week and shortening the two final weeks in July to two days each.

This interruption was not legally necessary – as noted by the prosecution, Zschäpe has “three additional defense counsel” who are already up to speed. However, neither was the assignment of Grasel legally necessary after Zschäpe’s motion to have counsel Anja Sturm relieved was denied. It seems that the court’s decision to assign was based on other motives, such as a hope that he might bring Zschäpe to fulfill her announcement of maybe making a statement on some Continue reading →