Federal prosecution reneges on its promise to clear up the facts

This morning the court heard a witness on the robbery of a post office in Chemnitz. This was followed by the federal prosecution’s comments on victims counsel motions for evidence concerning secret service informer “primus”, Ralf Marschner as well as connections between the Nazi scene and the general criminal scene in Thuringia.

Prosecutor Diemer asked that the motions concerning Marschner be denied in their entirety, arguing that the factual claims made, if proven, would have no influence on the court’s judgment. Victims’ counsel pointed out that this was another clear case of the prosecution reneging on its promise to the NSU’s victims to clear up all relevant facts.

Informer Marschner was one of the big names in the Saxonian Nazi scene, proprietor of scene shops selling music and clothes as well as a contractor firm. Another member of the scene had reported that he had seen Böhnhardt and Mundlos in 1998, shortly after they had gone underground, with a fat man and his dog; his description of the fat man fits Marschner. Two of his staff members had reported that they knew Zschäpe from one of the shops – it remains unclear, however, whether she was there as a customer or as a saleswoman. A business partner of Marschner’s reported that he recognized the photos of Zschäpe from the wanted poster as a woman whom he had met several times in one of Marschner’s shops and who may well have worked there. Finally, a former foreman with his contracting firm had told journalists from German daily “Die Welt” that Uwe Mundlos had worked there under the alias of Max-Florian Burkhardt.

“Die Welt” has also found out that Marschner’s contracting firm had often rented vans from the same firm where the NSU, under their aliases, had also rented vans which they then used for murders and bank robberies. Marschner’s firm had inter alia rented vehicles on 13 June 2001, the day Abdurrahim Özüdoğru was murdered in Nuremberg, as well as 29 August 2001, the day of the murder of Habil Kılıç in Munich.

The prosecution’s claims that these are simple rumors ignore that its own investigations had also led to such witness statements. And if their claim that such issues are without relevance for the judgment were true, the court could have dispensed with about 70 % of the witnesses heard so far.

This shows once more that the prosecution is simply blocking further elucidation of the facts and protecting the secret service.

At the end of the trial day, victims’ counsel brought a motion for evidence, asking that the court consider several pictures taken during Zschäpe’s, Mundlos’ and Böhnhardt’s summer vacation 2004, shortly after the bombing attack on the Keupstraße in Cologne. Zschäpe had claimed to have been aghast when she was told of the attack, that her relationship to Böhnhardt had become frosty. These pictures, which show a happy, untroubled couple, clearly disprove her claims.