Zschäpe’s fingerprints on the NSU archive, and: the Wohlleben defense also wants to clear up the facts.

After the long trial day yesterday, the court only heard one expert witness today, a fingerprint expert with the federal criminal police. He reported how he had found out that finger prints found on two newspaper articles in the NSU’s archive of articles on their crimes were Beate Zschäpe’s. These prints could only have gotten there by Zschäpe touching the articles. As to the defense claim that the prints might have been transferred from another piece of paper, the expert stated that this was already very unlikely and that in any event such transfer would lead to a mirror image of the original prints, which is not what he found here. Thus the totality of the evidence shows that Zschäpe touched these articles in the newspaper archive.

The Wohlleben defense brought several motions: for one, they moved that the case files of the investigations against several suspected supporters of the NSU be made part of the case file – this was based on the fact that minutes of police interviews with witnesses conducted in 2013 had only been sent to the court in Munich by the prosecution last week.

They also moved that reports on tapped phones from the investigation against Nazi rock band “Landser” be made part of the case file and that two witnesses be called to testify in order to show that (Blood and Honour Chemnitz) and Ralf Marschner (Blood and Honour Zwickau and informer to the federal domestic secret service) were tasked with providing guns to Böhnhardt and Mundlos. Finally, the secret service case file on Marschner is to show that the secret service knew the whereabouts of the three who had gone underground, but had not given that information to the police.

Several of these motions have already been brought, in a different context, by victims’ counsel, who had moved for access to the other case files in order to find out more about the size of the NSU’s networks and its crimes and for an investigation of the role of Marschner and the secret service since the victims and families of murder victims have a right to know what role the state played in the NSU’s crimes. It remains to be seen whether the court will follow these motions now that the Wohlleben defense has latched on to them.

Lies and Trivialization, Part 16 – David Petereit, member of parliament, The White Wolf, the NSU letter and 2.500 €, but no recollection.

Today’s only witness was David Petereit, member of the state parliament of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern for the Nazi party NPD. His testimony lasted from 9.30 am to 8.45 pm. The basis for his questioning was quite clear: From at least 2002 to 2004, Petereit was involved in publishing the Nazi fanzine “The White Wolf”. Issue 1/2002 of that zine contained not only articles on militant neo-Nazi organization Combat 18, but also a preface, signed with Petereit’s pseudonym “Eihwaz”, stating that “as the times become together, so must our struggle – support the comrades in detention, in the legal fight, in the streets, form networks – listening to music and partying alone will not bring about the change we need”, followed by the following statement in bold type: “Many thanks to the NSU, it has borne fruit :) The struggle goes on…”

A report of the domestic secret service of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern of 9 April 2002 summarizes the statement of an informer on this issue: “The publication “The White Wolf” is said to have received an anonymous donation of 2,500 € and a letter stating that ‘Keep on doing what you’re doing, you deserve the money!’” Continue reading →