Yesterday and today, the court heard the report of an expert witness working for the federal criminal police who reported on DNA evidence found on items seized in the Fr\u00fchlingsstra\u00dfe apartment and the mobile home in which B\u00f6hnnhardt and Mundlos had died. The expert witness began by detailing the methods used and problems encountered, particularly where there was DNA material from several persons on one item. As to accused Eminger, there is a further issue since he has a twin brother \u2013 if, as claimed by the defence, they are identical twins, they also have identical DNA.<\/p>\n
Many of the findings he reported on today have already been dealt with in the trial and reported on in this blog: Zsch\u00e4pe\u2019s DNA found on parts of the NSU\u2019s newspaper archive, Mundlos\u2018 and B\u00f6hnhardt\u2019s DNA found on several weapons. They support the other evidence in showing that B\u00f6hnhardt and Mundlos used the bicycles, clothes, masks and guns found to commit the NSU crimes, while Zsch\u00e4pe was not directly involved in the commission of the murders and robberies, but in organizing the day to day, finding identity papers and apartments, rental vehicles and generally allowing life underground to go on.<\/p>\n
However, also found in the mobile home in Eisenach were a water bottle containing DNA material from both Zsch\u00e4pe and B\u00f6hnhardt, as well as two socks with Zsch\u00e4pe\u2019s DNA. This makes it seem possible that Zsch\u00e4pe was in the vehicle. One witness who has not yet testified in court has stated in her police interview that on the day before the bank robbery in Eisenach, she had seen a mobile home with a woman who looked like Zsch\u00e4pe.<\/p>\n
The findings of the expert witness also support the statement by victims\u2019 counsel that the NSU consisted not only of a small group of three persons, but was rather part of a network of active Nazis. There were items of clothing with DNA material from both Susan Eminger and Zsch\u00e4pe, a child of Andr\u00e9 and Susan Eminger\u2019s was likely present in the trio\u2019s apartment, at least one further child who is not related to the accused or the other known supporters was in contact with them. Several cigarette butts found in the basement of the Fr\u00fchlingsstra\u00dfe contained DNA of a further unknown woman. A revolver and a hand grenade found in the mobile home also contained evidence of having been touched by at least one as yet unknown person.<\/p>\n
Finally, the notes and maps detailing attempts to scout out potential murder victims also contained DNA of further unknown persons, this is especially so for the notes concerning Kassel, where Halit Yozgat was killed in 2006. This makes it seem likely that further supporters were involved in scouting out victims. So far, however, all attempts by victims\u2019 counsel to hear evidence concerning potential NSU contacts to other armed Nazi groups, particularly in Dortmund and Kassel, have been rejected.<\/p>\n
The findings on jogging pants found in the Fr\u00fchlingsstra\u00dfe allow a view into the psyche of Uwe Mundlos. Mundlos had most likely worn those pants as his DNA was found both on the pants as well as on handkerchiefs found in its pockets. Blood splatters found on the outside of the pant legs contained the DNA of murdered police officer Michele Kiesewetter, which shows that the pants were worn to commit the murder in Heilbronn. The expert witness stated that, given the way the pants looked and the quality of the DNA material, it is most likely that these pants had not been washed after the crime. Of course, there is no way to conclusively prove that Mundlos kept them as a sort of trophy \u2013 but it becomes clear once more that the group did nothing to try to get rid of potential evidence, instead kept many items deriving from their crimes which were of no practical use to them.<\/p>\n
By contrast, the DVDs with the video in which the NSU claimed responsibility for its crimes hardly contained any DNA material, here it seems that the trio likely was generally rather careful.<\/p>\n
Generally speaking, B\u00f6hnhardt, Mundlos, Zsch\u00e4pe and their co-perpetrators seem to have felt rather safe and unafraid of being uncovered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The difficulty of the plains, part II: DNA evidence supports the network theory Yesterday and today, the court heard the report of an expert witness working for the federal criminal police who reported on DNA evidence found on items seized in the Fr\u00fchlingsstra\u00dfe apartment and the mobile home in which B\u00f6hnnhardt and Mundlos had died. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allgemein"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsu-nebenklage.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsu-nebenklage.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsu-nebenklage.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsu-nebenklage.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsu-nebenklage.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1011"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsu-nebenklage.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1012,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsu-nebenklage.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011\/revisions\/1012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsu-nebenklage.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsu-nebenklage.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsu-nebenklage.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}