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"You saw the video?": In the process after the attack in Halle, the presiding judge Ursula Mertens questioned the father of the 20-year-old who was killed
Photo: Hendrik Schmidt / dpa
It was on October 9, 2019, when the scaffolding builder Karsten Lissau had been trying to reach his son Kevin in Halle for hours from Wuppertal.
This morning, Lissau, 44 years old, slender and bowed to grief, sits as a witness in the largest room of the Magdeburg regional court.
Whenever there is talk of this process, it is usually said that it was about the attack on the synagogue in Halle, but the perpetrator also murdered elsewhere.
Lissau is clearly finding it difficult to testify.
You can see his shoulders tremble, he rocks his feet under the witness table as if he wanted to get up and run away.
He's doing this for his son.
"At a quarter to twelve we had been on the phone because Kevin wanted to go to the kebab shop", recalls Lissau.
His son's mother said no because Kevin was a little overweight, he allowed him to.
Kevin was 20 years old, in memory of him his father wears a scarf with the red and white emblem of Halleschen FC on that day.
Father and son had often been to the football stadium together.
He tried to call Kevin 20 or 30 times that day before posting a missing person report on Facebook, says Lissau.
Then a friend sent him the video.
It is the twelfth day of the trial. Stephan Balliet, now 28 years old, is sitting in the dock, a few arm's lengths from Kevin's father.
The former chemistry student wanted to storm the synagogue with self-made weapons and explosives in order to kill as many Jews as possible.
The door to the synagogue area withstood his attack, out of frustration he shot a passerby who happened to be walking by.
Then he drove on to the Kiez kebab.
The charges are double murder and 68 times attempted murder, Holocaust denial, sedition, predatory extortion and more.
The State Security Senate of the Naumburg Higher Regional Court meets in the Magdeburg Regional Court for reasons of safety and space.
"He was very proud of it"
"Tell us something about your son", asks the presiding judge Ursula Mertens Kevin's father.
"He was physically and mentally disabled, but he developed well," says Karsten Lissau.
When he was born, Kevin had an epileptic fit, it was "critical".
But Kevin fought, he went to the special school in Halle for eight years: "He looked forward to school every day," says his father.
The family always pulled together when it came to Kevin.
The parents lived separately, but every year they went on vacation together.
"Then Kevin did it alone."
Initially, his father drove with him to HFC football matches, then his son made friends in the fan club there.
"He took them to the away games on the bus," recalls Lissau.
“They protected him:“ We were never afraid of what would happen to him. ”Finally, Kevin achieved what initially nobody would have thought possible: He got an internship in a painting company and even got a real job as a painter:“ Until August he was still at school, he started there on October 1st, "says his father." He was very proud of it. "On October 9th, Balliet committed the fatal attack.
The chair asks Karsten Lissau: "What plans did your son have?"
- "He wanted to work, finance himself. It bothered him that the week only has 40 hours," says his father.
"He could buy his football tickets himself", Kevin was "super proud" of that.
more on the subject
Survivor of the Halle attack: "A deeply despicable crime has taken place here" Beate Lakotta reports from Magdeburg
Icon: Video anti-Semitism: "You can't just stand by and watch!" A video by Carolin Katschak
Trial after the Halle assassination attempt: "After today he will not cause me any more agony" Beate Lakotta reports from Magdeburg
And Stephan Balliet, the assassin?
He had told the court that Jews and Muslims were to blame if white men like him felt marginalized, couldn't find a girlfriend and couldn't find a job.
Therefore, after failing to kill Jews, he envisaged Muslims as "secondary targets".
"How did it come about that you shot Kevin S.", the chairwoman wanted to know.
Answer: "He had black hair, I thought he was a Middle Eastern man."
While Kevin's father speaks, Balliet just looks carefully in his direction, mostly looking at the ground.
His own life began under the best of conditions: an intelligent child, middle-class parents, studies.
Then, according to his own account, an intestinal disease threw him off course.
At the time of the crime, he was living in a socially isolated manner in his former children's room and allowed his mother to bear with him.
He refused to do anything for society, which wanted to replace him with Muslims and blacks, Balliet had declared the chairwoman in a haughty tone.
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Defendant Stephan Balliet
Photo: Hendrik Schmidt / dpa
One must understand him that his life's achievement is the act for which he is now in court.
The world should know about it, so he recorded it with a helmet camera and streamed the video live on the Internet.
On the second day of the negotiation, the chairwoman showed it on the screens in the hall: From the first person shooter perspective, you can see Balliet storming into the Kiez kebab with his self-made arsenal after the failed attack on the synagogue.
You see guests fleeing, you see Kevin S. hiding behind a drinks fridge, you hear him begging for his life and crying loudly.
And as Balliet says to him: "Eat, man" before he pulls the trigger several times, up close.
"You saw the video?" Asks the chairwoman Kevin's father.
Lissau nods, "A friend said, I'll send you something," he manages, "I'll take a look, I say: That's Kevin ..." Then father can't go any further.
He cries.
"It is important that we heard something from you too"
Judge Mertens to Karsten Lissau
Judge Mertens interrupts the hearing for a quarter of an hour.
Then Lissau sits down again on the witness chair.
His lawyer Erkan Görgülü puts a reassuring hand on his back.
How is he and Kevin's mother doing today, the chairwoman asks the father.
Both parents are being treated, says Lissau.
Several times he was inpatient in psychiatry, he was suicidal: "It's a life we didn't know before."
The chair thanked Lissau for his statement: "It is important that we heard something from you too."
One would now like to know what the accused thinks.
In his testimony on the first day of the trial, he had said that the death of the passer-by in front of the synagogue and the young man in the kebab shop had "not been planned that way," a mistake he was sorry for.
It is true that he assumes that whoever eats lunch in a kebab shop, unlike him, has "no problems with Muslims".
"But I didn't mean to kill white people."
On the previous days of the trial, Balliet had repeatedly smiled contemptuously when survivors from the synagogue spoke of their trauma and made mental connections to their families' Holocaust experiences.
You don't see him smiling this morning.
After the testimony of Kevin's father, a co-plaintiff spoke up: He had observed Balliet rolling his eyes during Kevin's father's testimony.
"Mr. Balliet, did you roll your eyes?" Asks the chairwoman.
Balliet bends over to the microphone and says, "No."
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