More shenanigans from the Zschäpe defense, and on Wohlleben’s ideology.

Today the court had summoned a witness of the attack committed in Jena in the early 1990s which had already been subject of the testimony of several witnesses. The witness did not appear, however.

The court then planned to give the floor to Zschäpe’s counsel of choice Borchert, who planned to read out a statement on behalf of his client. Before he could begin, however, assigned counsel Heer took the microphone and began to read out a document objecting to several of the questions posed by victims’ counsel on 6 July. Borchert asked for a break, after which he allowed Heer to read out his objections and then stated that Zschäpe’s statement would only be read out after the court had made its decision. It seems that, even in the face of diverging strategies, the Zschäpe defense is united in trying to further delay the trial.

Victims’ counsel criticized these objections as uncalled-for delays – the defense could have brought these objections directly after the questions had been asked. The court will have to invest some effort into dealing with these objections, most of which are hardly explained at all. Whether any of these questions will ever be answered is totally open of course, early on Zschäpe had announced that she would not answer questions by victims’ counsel.

At the end of the trial day, victims’ counsel brought various motions for evidence aiming to show that the accused Wohlleben had, throughout his political career, followed a xenophobic and national Socialist ideology, contrary to his self-presentation in court as a non-violent proponent of the peaceful co-existence of peoples. There is also evidence that Wohlleben had used the email-address derrosarotepanther@hotmail.de (The Pink Panther) in the year 2008, i.e. after the NSU video had been completed, but before the NSU had uncovered itself.