Daily Archives: 15. January 2016

14 January 2016

German Angst – Ralf Wohlleben decides not to answer all questions after all.

The further questioning of Ralf Wohlleben began rather slowly – the presiding judge asked further questions concerning Wohlleben’s statement on 16 December 2015.
Wohlleben confirmed some of the main results of the evidence taken so far, which had massively incriminated him. Above all, he confirmed his knowledge of all relevant acts of support provided to Zschäpe, Böhnhardt and Mundlos – he knew when and in what amounts money was provided for them, he knew, who was in contact with them, he stated that he had believed that had lived in Chemnitz (as they in fact did). This again shows his important role in the support network – a role which his defense has tried to deny since the early days of the trial, only to be disproven by the evidence.

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13 January 2016

Wohllebens attempts to deny the charges leads him to a partial admission of guilt.

Today accused Wohlleben was questioned by the court. On 16 December 2015, Wohlleben had read out a prepared statement and announced that he would answer questions (see the report of [link] 16 December 2015). Presiding judge Götzl questioned Wohlleben until 2.30 pm, when the trial day was adjourned as counsel Klemke had announced that Wohlleben was suffering from back pain and headaches and was unable to concentrate. Klemke’s intervention came shortly after Wohlleben had seriously painted himself into a corner in answering questions concerning the Ceska murder weapon.

But back to the beginning: The presiding judge largely limited himself to asking questions to clear up issues in the statement read out by Wohlleben that remained unclear. In the morning, the main topic was the political vita of Wohlleben, the “Comradeship Jena”, the “Thuringia Home Guard” etc. Wohlleben was surprisingly restrained as far as propaganda statement were concerned, mostly tried to present the activities of the various Nazi groups as unspectacular and strictly non-violent. Continue reading →

12 January 2016

The Court does not question the accused today – instead it considers other pieces of evidence which will contribute to finding them guilty.

Those who had hoped that the court would question accused Zschäpe and Wohlleben today were due for a disappointment: Wohlleben’s questioning was pushed to tomorrow on request of his defense attorneys, and as for Zschäpe, who will only answer questions in writing anyway, her defense team still seems to have a need for further discussion concerning the rather few questions posed by the presiding judge. The court instead read out several documents, above all concerning identification of finger print, which will contribute to proving the guilt of these two as well as co-accused André Eminger.