Closing statements on the murders in Rostock and Nuremberg

The first closing statement of the day could only start after an hours’ delay. Before that, the Wohlleben defense objected to the presiding judge’s reaction to earlier statements. They claimed that victims’ counsel Schön and Reinecke had both made statements on the penalties to be assessed to the accused and made motions in that regard, and that this was inadmissible and should have been stopped by the presiding judge. The prosecution asked for a four hour delay in order to comment on that objection in detail, a request which led to an embarrassing outburst from Zschäpe defense counsel Heer, who accused the presiding judge of strikingly partisan behavior favoring the prosecution as the defense was never given that much time – it should be noted that he held forth in this manner before the court had even decided on the requested delay. In fact, the delay did not occur as counsel Langer had announced that he would not make a statement on penalties in his closing statements.  Continue reading →

Closing statement by Eberhard Reinecke: including thoughts on the NSU’s communications strategy

Counsel Eberhard Reinecke continued his closing statement today. He began with a short rebuttal of the statement by counsel Kaplan of last week, detailing why questions of institutional racism etc. do in fact belong in the Munich trial and why those counsel who, when faced with requests by their clients, emphasize their standing as “independent members of the bar” often turn into “inactive members of the bar”.

Reinecke also referred in passing to the sister of Süleyman Taşköprü, who had written to the court in reaction to the bizarre reactionary statement by her counsel Wierig last week and had asked not to be represented by Wierig any longer. She felt that the statement was not in her interest and that she had been deceived by Wierig. Continue reading →

Further statements by victims’ counsel, above all on Zschäpe’s statements in court and on André and Susann Eminger.

Today Eberhard Reinecke, who represents several victims of the Keupstraße bombing attack, continued the closing statement his colleague Schön had begun yesterday. Sadly he was unable to finish his statement today as accused Wohlleben stated that he was suffering from headaches.

Reinecke first turned to the investigations concerning accused NSU supporters and voiced his fears that nothing will follow from these proceedings. Above all, he pointed to the many lying Nazi witnesses and used a few concrete examples to show how easy it would be to prove that they had perjured themselves. Continue reading →

Further closing statements on the Keupstraße and on the murder in Heilbronn

Today the court heard further closing statements by victims’ counsel on the murder of Michèle Kiesewetter and the attempted murder of her colleague Martin A. in Heilbronn.

Prior to those statement, Alexander Hoffmann concluded his statement begun last week on the ideology of the NSU and its network of supporters.

Hoffman showed that the many different political organizations, from the Jena division of the “Thuringia Homeguard”, whose members wore SA-like uniforms, to the prissy-seaming Nazi Party NPD, whose members were often called “side partings” based on their haircuts, and to Blood and Honours, whose members wore tattoes and considered themselves part of a subculture, were all united by a common ideology:

Continue reading →

Counsel for the Taşköprü family: two strong statements and a ludicrous defense pleading

The first two closing statements today were held by Andreas Thiel and Gül Pinar on behalf of family members of Süleyman Taşköprü, who had been killed by the NSU in Hamburg in 2001.

Andreas Thiel’s moving statement showed the immeasurable suffering caused to the family by the murder of their brother, son and father – Süleyman Taşköprü’s daughter was two years old at the time of his death. Thiel quoted Taşköprü’s father, who had found his dying son in the shop and blamed himself for having left shortly before to buy some olives: “I put his head on my lap, touched his face. He tried to say something, but he couldn’t. I tried to render first aid, but I couldn’t. […] If I had known that the murderers were there, I would have gone back, no matter what would have happened to me.”

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Further closing statements by victims’ counsel, inter alia on Andreas Temme

Today the court first heard the closing statements of counsel to the Yozgat family and of Halit Yozgat’s parents, who addressed the court in person.

Counsel Alexander Kienzle dealt in detail with the role of Hessian secret service officer Andreas Temme, who was present in the internet shop when Halit Yozgat was killed, and who claims to have neither heard anything nor noticed Yozgat’s dead body. Kienzle noted that Temme had been tasked with investigating the series of murders then called “kebab killings” a few weeks prior to the murder. He also presented all the ways in which the secret service had tried to block the murder investigation, attempts justified by reference to a need to “safeguard sources”, a need which was paramount and trumped a “mere murder investigation”.  Continue reading →

More closing statements from victims and their counsel.

Today Antonia von der Behrens wrapped up her closing statement. In the first part delivered last week, she had assembled a large number of facts to a mosaic proving her two central theses: the NSU was surrounded by a large network of secret service informers, and the secret service had a large body of information about the group’s members and their whereabouts, but several times failed to pass on this information, causing the police to fail to apprehend them and thus prevent further murders.

Today, Antonia von der Behrens turned to the time after the NSU’s self-uncovering in 2011 and considered not only the secret service, but also the federal prosecution. Continue reading →

State negligence up to the level of collusion.

Today marked the beginning of the concluding statement by counsel Antonia von der Behrens, who represents the youngest son of Mehmet Kubaşık. Elif and Gamze Kubaşık had come to Munich once more to hear her statement.

Antonia von der Behrens first dealt with the extent of the knowledge the various domestic secret service agencies had about Mundlos, Böhnhardt, Zschäpe and the NSU from the early 1990s up to November of 2011, and with the size of the network surrounding the NSU from whom they could derive such knowledge.

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First closing statements on the Keupstraße attack: “’Operation kebap skewer’ and ‘kebap killings’ go hand in hand, not only in words!”

Today’s closing statements concerned the nail bomb attack on the Keupstraße in Cologne and the police investigation of that attack, referred to as the “bomb after the bomb” by Keupstraße victims.

Counsel Stephan Kuhn began by detailing the murderous effects of the bomb, turning then to the investigations, which from the very beginning were directed against the bombing victims in the Keupstraße. He also detailed that this orientation of the investigations was counter not only to the many explicit statements by victims that the attack must have been committed by Nazis or other xenophobes, but also against all known evidence and the results of a profiler’s findings. Continue reading →

Further closing statements by victims’ counsel: on the NSU’s political context.

Victim’s counsel Dr. Peer Stolle, in his closing statement held today, argued against the tendency of those involved in the NSU trial to uncouple and divorce it from its context, the historical developments during the time in which the organization arose and grew, and the Nazi scene in Thuringia and Germany. He announced:

„I will first call to mind the situation of the broader society in the early 1990s, will then briefly consider cornerstones of the biographies of the deceased Mundlos and Böhnhardt and the accused, will trace the development of the extreme rightwing scene in Thuringia, its ideology and its concepts of action and will thus show that the NSU was not a murderous project of a few individuals who were cut off from the scene, but rather the logical product of the concepts discussed within that scene.”  Continue reading →