The defense continues with its challenges – no trial tomorrow

As was to be feared, the defense continues its program of challenges against judges for alleged bias – this time they wish to challenge two of the judges who declared their last challenge to be meritless. The challenge will be issued in writing this evening.

As the code of criminal procedure does not allow the court to continue with the closing statements while there is an open challenge for alleged bias, the trial day tomorrow has been canceled. The trial will continue on Thursday, 9 November 2017.

The only other thing that happened today is that victims’ counsel Eberhard Reinecke brought a motion for evidence concerning the garage in Jena which the NSU members had inter alia used to build bombs. In her statement, Zschäpe had claimed that she had rented this garage on her own in order to repair her relationship with Böhnhardt, which he had ended shortly before. However, according to the witness, the owner of the Garage, she had been accompanied by a man introduced as her boyfriend at the very first meeting with him The court has not yet decided on the motion. The prosecution moved that it be denied, inter alia alleging reasons to believe that the motion had been brought in order to delay the trial – a claim which is absurd given that the trial has been paralyzed by the defense for several months now.