Concluding statement of the federal prosecution, day 5: more on the Ceska and on Wohlleben and Schultze

Prosecutor Weingarten concluded his statement on accused Wohlleben and Schultze today. He showed that Wohlleben was the one responsible for coordinating the activities of all supporters, not only in general, but also with regard to the Ceska pistol, and that Schultze, as he himself had admitted, was also directly involved in the procurement of the pistol.

Weingarten then turned to the mens rea, i.e. to proving that Wohlleben and Schultze realized that there was at least a distinct possibility that Böhnhardt, Mundlos and Zschäpe would commit murders with the pistol. With respect to Wohlleben, this is proved by the fact that he knew of the National Socialist ideology and propensity for violence of the NSU core trio, inter alia from debates in their group “Comradeship Jena” concerning “armed struggle”, as well as by the fact that he himself – contrary to his attempts to present himself as an “ethnopluralist” pacifist – had shared that National Socialist ideology. Continue reading →

Concluding statements of the federal prosecution, day 4: on Wohlleben and Schultze and on the Ceska murder weapon

The prosecution had originally announced that prosecutor Greger was to hold her statement on the fifteen brutal robberies committed by the NSU today. However, this was postponed, instead her colleague Weingarten began his concluding statement on accused Wohlleben, Schultze, Gerlach and Eminger. He announced that he would be able to deal only with Wohlleben and Schultze and the procurement of the Ceska murder weapon this weeks and would deal with Gerlach and Eminger after the summer break. All accused, regardless of how active or inactive their defense counsel had been in the trial and of how much interest the press showed in them, would receive the same amount of attention from the prosecution – a clear signal towards accused Gerlach and Eminger.  Continue reading →