On the investigative methods of the federal criminal police, and once more on the attack in 1998/1999

The first witness today, a federal criminal police detective, once again provided a glimpse into the investigative methods of his office: Accused Carsten Schultze had reported that Wohlleben told him about a telephone conversation with Mundlos and Böhnhardt, who had claimed to have shot and injured someone. The federal criminal police were asked to investigate – after all this was a clue hinting at another crime which had not yet been linked to the NSU.

The witness simply asked the criminal police in the various Länder for reports on unsolved crimes involving guns and summarized their answers and then considered his job finished. He did not bother to anything else, e.g. to ask further questions of his colleagues or to do any investigations on his own – this in spite of the fact that his various colleagues had obviously not fully understood his request, with one office reporting on various robberies, another only reporting murders and a third reporting several attacks with air rifles. Continue reading →

Further reading of documents

On today’s first trial day after the summer break, the court read out several documents concerning various aspects of the trial.

Victims’ counsel Hardy Langer made a motion for evidence concerning an attack by Neonazis from Jena in 1998/1999 which accused Schultze had reported on his statement in court (see the report of 21 July 2016). Langer provided an article from a local newspaper discussing this crime.

Zschäpe defense attorneys Heer, Stahl and Sturm once again commented on the questions by victims’ counsel they had objected to (see the reports of 1 August and 2 August 2016), dropping some objections and maintaining others – again without given any detailed reasoning. Continue reading →

Once more on Ralf Wohlleben’s ideology.

Two former detectives from the political division of the Jena criminal police who had investigated members of the “Comradeship Jena” and the Thuringia Home Guard had been summoned as witnesses today. Only one of them testified, however, as the other one was ill.

His testimony again turned into a tiring show by defense attorney Klemke after the witness had not testified the way the defense expected him to. Instead of stating that Wohlleben had not committed any xenophobic political acts, the witness reported that Wohlleben had from 1996 on organized the activities of the Nazi party NPD and the “Comradeships” in a way allowing him to remain in the background, and also gave examples of xenophobic acts. Accordingly, Klemke once again had to try to present the witness as unbelievable. Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →

Another concrete statement by Zschäpe shown to be untrue.

The only witness today was a federal criminal police detective and expert witness for “identification of persons based on photographs”. She had compared a photograph of a man accompanying Zschäpe, Mundlos and Böhnhardt during their 2006 summer vacation with pictures of accused Holger Gerlach. In painstaking detail, she explained that “with a probability bordering on certainty” the two pictures showed the same man.

Her testimony is relevant as it shows another answer of Zschäpe’s to the court’s questions to be untrue: Zschäpe had claimed not to have met Gerlach after 2004, in particular not to have been on vacation with him. This statement – one of very few factual statements amenable to a factual check-up – has thus also proven to be untrue. The court has accordingly made another step on the way to a judgment of conviction. Continue reading →

More on the „NSU letter“

Today the court questioned another editor of a Nazi fanzine – the “Standard Bearer” (Fahnenträger) from Saxony-Anhalt. The witness stated that in the summer of 2002, he had received the “NSU letter” and a 500€-bill via mail. Other than that, he claimed not to remember anything – the only thing he was sure of was that his zine had been called “Standard Bearer” and not “The Standard Bearer”.

The “memory gaps” presented by this witness proved too brazen even for the federal prosecution, who began to question him quite extensively. This culminated in a successful motion to exclude his witness counsel from the trial – counsel had “coached” the witness, who obviously did not want to answer a certain question, to falsely claim not to remember anything. Of course, the energy put into this display by the prosecution would have been better placed into the questioning of several earlier Nazi witnesses feigning memory gaps. The witness was sent home for today and will have to appear again in September, accompanied by a different counsel. Continue reading →

On assaults by neo-Nazis from Jena in the 1990s and on the believability of accused Schultze.

Today the court heard too witnesses to check a statement by accused Schultze. He had reported on an assault committed by several neo-Nazis from Jena on two people in the late 1990s. According to Schultze, among those involved in the assault was Ralf Wohlleben, who had later told him that he had “jumped on one guy’s head.” (see the report of [link] 11 June 2013). The court has now summoned as witnesses the others whom Schultze had named as having been involved. Continue reading →

Marcel Degner and his witness counsel

The trial day today was another short one. The only witness was – once again – the former chief of Blood and Honour Thuringia, Marcel Degner. He was again questioned about his activities as an informer for the Thuringia domestic secret service, which contact officers had clearly confirmed, but Degner had denied until the end (see the report of 29 June 2016).

Today Degner stated that he wanted to “revise” his earlier statement concerning his working as an informer and refuse to answer, relying on the privilege against self-incrimination. He was told several times that it was either one – revise the earlier statement and make a different one (e.g. “I was an informer after all”) or refuse to answer the question –, but that both at once was not possible. His witness counsel was similarly informed, without however doing anything to change this strategy – leading to a motion brought by the defense and joined in by the federal prosecution that the witness counsel be exchanged for a colleague more versed in this legal field. Continue reading →

The taking and consideration of evidence clearly show that the trial is headed towards a conviction

Today the court heard one witness, a computer expert with the federal criminal police who had inter alia printed out the photos of Zschäpe’s, Böhnhardt’s and Mundlos’ summer vacation in 2004, contained on a CD-ROM found in the Frühlingsstraße apartment. These pictures, taken shortly after the nail bomb attack in the Keupstraße in Cologne, show a merry Zschäpe in harmony with the two men – refuting her claim that after the men had told her of the Cologne attack, there had been icy silence between her and them (see the report of 11 May 2016). The fact that the court takes such care to investigate technical details concerning these photos shows that it is planning to use them in its judgment – as an incriminating piece of evidence disproving Zschäpe’s statement in court. Continue reading →

Zschäpe’s fingerprints on the NSU archive, and: the Wohlleben defense also wants to clear up the facts.

After the long trial day yesterday, the court only heard one expert witness today, a fingerprint expert with the federal criminal police. He reported how he had found out that finger prints found on two newspaper articles in the NSU’s archive of articles on their crimes were Beate Zschäpe’s. These prints could only have gotten there by Zschäpe touching the articles. As to the defense claim that the prints might have been transferred from another piece of paper, the expert stated that this was already very unlikely and that in any event such transfer would lead to a mirror image of the original prints, which is not what he found here. Thus the totality of the evidence shows that Zschäpe touched these articles in the newspaper archive.

The Wohlleben defense brought several motions: for one, they moved that the case files of the investigations against several suspected supporters of the NSU be made part of the case file – this was based on the fact that minutes of police interviews with witnesses conducted in 2013 had only been sent to the court in Munich by the prosecution last week.

They also moved that reports on tapped phones from the investigation against Nazi rock band “Landser” be made part of the case file and that two witnesses be called to testify in order to show that (Blood and Honour Chemnitz) and Ralf Marschner (Blood and Honour Zwickau and informer to the federal domestic secret service) were tasked with providing guns to Böhnhardt and Mundlos. Finally, the secret service case file on Marschner is to show that the secret service knew the whereabouts of the three who had gone underground, but had not given that information to the police.

Several of these motions have already been brought, in a different context, by victims’ counsel, who had moved for access to the other case files in order to find out more about the size of the NSU’s networks and its crimes and for an investigation of the role of Marschner and the secret service since the victims and families of murder victims have a right to know what role the state played in the NSU’s crimes. It remains to be seen whether the court will follow these motions now that the Wohlleben defense has latched on to them.