Another senseless challenge for alleged bias by the Wohlleben defense. And: did secret service officer „Görlitz“ lie in court in Munich?

Victims’ counsel brought an interesting motion for evidence concerning the minutes of a meeting between Brandenburg secret service officer Görlitz and his informer Carsten Szczepanski on 25 August 1998. The motion raises the possibility that Görlitz has perjured himself in his testimony in Munich (on which see our reports of 16 June 2016, 2 March 2016, 29 July 2015 and 1 July 2015).

The background to this motion is the following: Sczepanski, who had been sentenced to a long prison sentence for a racist violent crime, had been recruited as an informer by Brandenburg’s interior secret service and had apparently been tasked with spying on “Blood and Honour” Saxony in order to find out the whereabouts of Böhnhardt, Mundlos and Zschäpe. Szczepanski had been given a mobile phone by the service. This telephone received a text message, likely from Blood and Honour activist Jan Werner from Chemnitz, asking “What’s up with the Bang?”, likely a reference to a proposed gun deal. In court, Görlitz had claimed that at the time the text arrived, the phone had already been returned to the service and switched off and that accordingly, he had never taken notice of the text. However, according to the motion brought today, the minutes of the August 1998 meeting show that the phone was switched on much longer than that. In addition, there is evidence of a meeting between Szczepanski and Werner after this meeting – hints that an arms deal may have taken place?

The presiding judge was obviously not happy about this motion. As the motion contained a copy of the minutes, marked as “secret”, he ordered that the motion not be copied and passed out to the parties – he first wished to check how to deal with the possibility of the minutes being secret. Thus the presiding judge once more blocks the taking of evidence.

The presiding judge then announced that he planned to read out several documents, which lead to another challenge for alleged bias being brought by the Wohlleben defense. Upon the urging of the federal prosecution, however, the court at least decided not to cancel tomorrow’s trial day.