The trial of the human rights activists Leandra, Zo, Vi, Daniel and Crow resumed on the 20th of May and the German state continued making a fool of itself. The clearly biased judge has refused to acknowledge the right of the defendants to sit next to their respective legal teams and has decided to maintain them behind the high-security glass, in a high-security room, in a high-security building, thereby painting them as dangerous criminals and not the human rights defenders that they are. On that day the defendants tried to make a statement about their rights to sit next to their lawyers, but their papers were taken away from them on the judge’s orders. Not wanting to be willing participants in this farce, they refused to walk to their seats and had to be carried in by the security staff. After that, and the now customary standing ovation from the public, the trial resumed.
After the lawyers tried to present more motions and got denied again and again by Judge Kathrin Lauchstädt, the prosecutor got his moment of glory and read the accusations. His accusations and reasoning will go down in history as so far-fetched and cringe that it was painful to watch him be so proud of himself while being so utterly wrong. He started years back, talking about Palestine Action UK, fixating in a weird way on their overalls, again and again, and again. He claimed Palestine Action UK has been proscribed, but forgot to mention this proscription was overruled by a higher court. He proudly made the connection that one of the defendants had ordered similar overalls (that never came) and therefore fashion and not conviction to destroy the genocide machine is what connected the activists internationally.
He then proceeded to explain the antisemitic accusations, tying the truth that Israel kills children—the latest last night—to medieval blood libels. And of course, the ace up the sleeve of all lazy German prosecutors: “From the river to the sea.”
And he described the damage these brave people did to the international war and killing enterprise that is Elbit Systems.
Then it was the turn of each lawyer’s team to make their opening statements. Each team focused on different themes, confronting the preposterous accusations head on. During the last of the opening statements, as the lawyer for Daniel was talking about the horrific numbers of the genocide and the thousands of dead children, and most of us were weeping, the prosecutor smiled and made funny faces. This got, to his regret, reported in the media. After the lawyers’ statements the judge called it a day.
That day, two members of the public who were writing got their pencils taken away and were told off by a very angry judge.
On Friday the 22nd it resumed. Many of us were greeted by a handsy security woman who grabbed and squeezed our breasts and touched us between our trousers or skirts and our underwear, some on the genitalia. Greta Thunberg was there and had the same all-hands-on-deck security woman.
When the trial began, the customary motions from the lawyers to have their clients next to them and to read their opening statements from there got denied. The judge offered the “compromise” of having them sit in the witness chair with their handcuffs on. When the lawyers complained, she said the Ulm 5 could not walk the few metres of the high-security courtroom corridor dividing the glass cell from the rest of the room without restraints.
After a few other motions for the right of the lawyers to have a person taking notes for them and the right of the public to write, the prosecutor and judge claimed that the public with sharp objects was a danger to them. Never mind the 14 heavily equipped security guards and the 2.5-metre glass wall separating us from them. The prosecutor used the opportunity to whine about the reports of him laughing at the word genocide and the thousands of dead children. He claimed he was laughing at the legal arguments presented by the lawyers. Clearly, a room full of people disagrees, and even if true, professionalism would not be his forte.
The judge then tried to call it a day around midday. But the lawyers pointed out that this was the 4th date, that the families and friends of the Ulm 5 come from a long way, some even from another country, to hear their opening statements. She begrudgingly agreed, after a 2-hour lunch and siesta break. We finally got to hear Daniel’s words in their own voice, and they decided to read them in German. They explained the humanitarian reasons that brought them to try to stop the killing of innocent people, and as they were rightfully talking about the preposterous antisemitic accusations, and how it was a shame to conflate the state of Israel currently committing genocide and killing thousands of people around the area with the Jewish people, someone in the audience, moved by their words, briefly clapped. That was the excuse the judge was looking for to call it a day and resume her much-needed siesta. But not before making that person walk escorted to the judge’s bench and reading their name out loud to be on the record. To be clear, almost all of the lawyers’ motions from the first day are not in her official record, but this activist’s name is.
This is a horror show trial and the monsters are real: the ones killing all those innocent babies in Palestine and Lebanon, and the ones defending them here through their Staatsräson.
