Wrangling over the defense expert

At the start of the trial day, the court heard the prosecution’s response to the defense motion for the court to hear their expert witness Prof. Faustmann. They asked that the motion be denied since the “critique of methodology” presented by Faustmann did not raise any doubts concerning the competence of expert witness Prof. Saß or concerning the reliability of his expert opinion.

This was followed by a lengthy discussion in which neither Zschäpe’s defense counsel Heer, Stahl and Sturm nor the federal prosecution left a positive impression: defense counsel wanted a written copy of the prosecution response since they had not been able to follow it – as they had similarly been unable a number of times earlier, and in contrast to the court and other parties who had been able to follow the prosecution’s arguments. Continue reading →