Another concrete statement by Zschäpe shown to be untrue.

The only witness today was a federal criminal police detective and expert witness for “identification of persons based on photographs”. She had compared a photograph of a man accompanying Zschäpe, Mundlos and Böhnhardt during their 2006 summer vacation with pictures of accused Holger Gerlach. In painstaking detail, she explained that “with a probability bordering on certainty” the two pictures showed the same man.

Her testimony is relevant as it shows another answer of Zschäpe’s to the court’s questions to be untrue: Zschäpe had claimed not to have met Gerlach after 2004, in particular not to have been on vacation with him. This statement – one of very few factual statements amenable to a factual check-up – has thus also proven to be untrue. The court has accordingly made another step on the way to a judgment of conviction. Continue reading →