A short appearance by informer „Giant“, and further refusal by the court to clear up the facts.

The only witness today was Marcel Degner aka „Giant“, former „Blood and Honour“ head in Thuringia and secret service informer “Hail”. In his earlier statements in court, he had denied having been an informer, even after his former contact officer had clearly identified him as such (see the reports of 11 March 2015 und 20 May 2015). This was such a brazen lie that the prosecution service in Munich initiated criminal proceedings charging him with perjury.
Today Degner stated that he had nothing to add to his previous statements; asked whether he had been an informer, he refused to answer. After some discussion, the presiding judge sent Degner home for today, announcing that he will be called to testify again in a few weeks. Degner’s earlier testimony has not been formally concluded, therefore he is still able to avoid criminal responsibility by rectifying untrue statements – the presiding judge seems to be giving him an opportunity to consider this option.

The court then rejected further motions for evidence and motions for reconsideration brought by victims’ counsel and thus remained true to its program of refusing any further elucidation of facts going beyond the very narrow indictment. Everything that needs to be said about this program has already been said (see the report of 2 June 2016).

The presiding judge than announced that parties will have an opportunity to pose questions to accused Zschäpe next week. Zschäpe has already announced that she will not answer questions by victims’ counsel (likely because she knows that doing so would further reveal the stories told by her defense as untrue), but it will nonetheless be interesting to see how she reacts to such questions.