Another week, another challenge for alleged bias brought by the Wohlleben defense

For today, the court had summoned only two witnesses, a police officer and a post office teller, both of whom testified on the robbery of a post office in Zwickau in 2001.

However, their testimony only started around 3.30 pm – the Wohlleben defense took up all the time until then by first asking for a lengthy break for deliberations, then for an even longer break in order to write up a challenge for alleged bias and then by reading out the long and convoluted challenge. Their challenge – this time directed against all judges of the court, is based on the allegedly wrong reasoning for denying their motion for a stay of proceedings brought last week (see the report of 5 April 2016). Like all other such challenges, it is without any merit.

At least this time the court did not allow the defense to shoot the trial week down entirely, instead decided to continue today and hold the trial tomorrow, with only the trial day on Thursday being canceled.

At the end of the trial day, victims’ counsel read out a thoroughly reasoned motion for evidence concerning Ralf Marschner from Zwickau, former informer for the federal domestic secret service under the name of “Primus” and his contacts to Böhnhardt, Mundlos and Böhnhardt. Recently, German television had reported that Marschner, who was owner of a contracting firm and several scene shops, may have employed both Zschäpe and Uwe Mundlos, that he knew where they lived and that his firm may have rented the vehicles used for several NSU murders in Nuremberg and Munich.