On the early statements of Carsten Schultze

Today the court heard only one witness, a federal criminal police detective who had been involved in the first police interview of accused Carsten Schultze. In that interview, Schultze – trying visibly to “dig up” the long-suppressed memories of his activities in the Nazi scene – had already related the purchase of the Ceska pistol in pretty much the same way as he did later in court. Above all, his statements on the role of Wohlleben has always been the same: Wohlleben had sent him to the proprietor of the scene shop “Madley’s”, saying “go to Schultz”, and Schultz had indeed sold him the pistol.

Schultze also tried already in that interview to downplay his own role and his co-responsibility for the NSU’s crimes. Inter alia, he claimed that he had not ordered the silencer and that he had not given any thought on the uses to which the pistol would be put.

Unsurprisingly given that Schultze massively incrimates Wohlleben, the Wohlleben defense tried to question the witness in a confrontational manner and to lead her into contradictory statements. They were, however, unsuccessful – the witness showed an embarrising lapse when she misremembered the legal instruction given to Schultze (she remembered that he had been instructed as a witness, when the minutes of the interview show that he was correctly instructed as an accused), but the defense was unable to raise any doubts on the substantive issues.