This week’s column recounts the last hearing of a case in which two activists aimed to hold a guy who showed the Hitler Salute to them at the site of a demonstration against the genocide in Gaza.
After the guy who had showed the Hitler Salute to them had challenged his initial verdict and the second judge had openly turned against the two witnesses in the second hearing, the third, final hearing then took place in January.
The comrade from the Flotilla relayed:
“First my friend testified, then me. When I entered the room, the judge was already acting very aggressively and constantly interrupted me while I was testifying, shouting at me. From the very beginning, the judge verbally attacked us witnesses, and accused us of being the perpetrators and provocateurs. She completely defended the Nazi and clearly expressed her anti-Muslim, anti-Palestinian hatred.
While I was explaining what had happened and that the police initially did not want to take a report and we had to insist, she commented that she found it outrageous that I ‘prevented the police from doing their job (demonstration) and harassed’ them with my report. She actually told me I could have done this later, which makes no sense, because otherwise I wouldn’t have the person’s personal details.”
The hearing became increasingly tense, with the judge yelling at the two activists and, when they attempted to answer the prosecutors questions, interrupted them even accused them of lying. When one of the activists defended herself against the judge’s aggressive questioning, even the defendant’s lawyer intervened on her behalf, noting she had “answered exactly the same as before and hadn’t lied.”
Nevertheless, the defendant’s courtroom tactics became clear in his testimony, when he not only claimed that growing up in Kreuzberg with lots of ‘coloured people’ (for which he used the racist term ‘farbige Menschen’), he couldn’t be a Nazi. More importantly, he suddenly claimed to have a Star of David tattoo and suggested that this provoked the witnesses, in a flawed attempt to frame the activists as antisemites and to deflect from his Nazi salute.
One of activist commented:
“The tattoo, which anyway was covered by clothes on that day, was a figure from a cartoon, not a Star of David. The whole story was fabricated and grotesque. Only in Germany something so absurd could work.”
And then came the verdict. In her closing statement, the prosecutor said that she found the activist’s statements credible and those of the defendant dubious. He claimed it was a “sailor’s salute” and not a Hitler salute.
However, unlike the first prosecutor, the one in the revision said found the video to be unclear and argued that in case of doubt, the decision must be made in favor of the defendant. Thus, the prosecutor requested an acquittal, which the judge gladly accepted. In her reasoning, the judge further defended the defendant by accusing the witnesses to have provoked him. Therefore, despite sufficient evidence and witnesses, and despite 11 previous convictions, the defendant was acquitted, which speaks to the state of the local ‘justice’ system, once non-white activists attempt to utilise it against racist aggressors.
