Destruction in Keupstrasse (2004): More than 20 people were injured
Photo: Federico Gambarini / dpa
The fictional victim of the NSU attack in Cologne's Keupstrasse destroyed their friendship: Abdullah Ö.
and Atilla Ö.
knew each other since childhood.
"We grew up in the same neighborhood. We went to school together. He was my friend," said Abdullah Ö., 46, on Wednesday in front of the Aachen regional court.
When the NSU nail bomb exploded in Cologne's Keupstrasse in June 2004, the two young men were in the barber shop in front of which the explosive device detonated.
They came to the hospital injured.
Abdullah Ö.
suffered cuts and lacerations on his head and arm and a tinnitus in his left ear, years later the attack robbed him of sleep.
A total of 23 people were victims of the nail bomb attack.
There was no Meral Keskin among them.
The Eschweiler lawyer Ralph Willms represented the non-existent woman for two and a half years in the NSU trial before the Munich Higher Regional Court.
Since August he has had to answer for fraud before the Aachen regional court.
He is silent in court.
In the preliminary investigation he presented himself as a victim. Atilla Ö.
is said to have led him to believe that Meral Keskin existed.
Atilla Ö.
however, said the lawyer always knew that Meral Keskin did not exist.
Atilla Ö.
himself can no longer testify in court that he died in autumn 2017.
The presiding judge Melanie Theiner asked his friend that day.
When did Abdullah Ö.
heard the name Meral Keskin for the first time?
The witness says he was asked if he knew her shortly before the scandal was exposed in October 2015.
The NSU victims from Keupstrasse had come together to form an initiative.
Members of this initiative asked him about Meral Keskin.
"I don't know this person," he said back then.
Shortly afterwards, a lawyer for other NSU victims, Mustafa Klaplan, asked about Meral Keskin.
He also told him that he did not know the woman, said Abdullah Ö.
"The friendship ended for now"
"Have you spoken to Atilla Ö. About the person?" Asks the judge.
"I once asked him who Meral Keskin was. He said she lived on the same street as him. He said he knew her. I asked him why I didn't know her. She's retired and in again Turkey, he said. "
Maybe two weeks later, Abdullah Ö.
then learned from the media that Meral Keskin doesn't even exist.
"That's when I ended the friendship," he says.
"That destroyed everything."
He broke off contact, says Abdullah Ö.
"I wanted to spit in his face because I was so disappointed in him."
Atilla Ö.
tried to save the friendship, wrote on his birthday and said that he missed him.
"I can't forgive you for what happened," he replied, said Abdullah Ö.
The Meral Keskin scandal brought all NSU victims into disrepute.
"What disappointed you so much?" Asks the judge.
"That he was involved in this."
"What do you think what Mr. Ö did?"
"I don't know. Just that he was there. That was just a disappointment for me."
The judge also asks about Atilla Ö.'s mother, who was also briefly a joint plaintiff in the NSU trial.
The process in Aachen brings more and more evidence to light that she, too, may never have been a victim of the NSU.
She is no longer alive either.
The fact that his friend's mother was also said to have been the victim of the attack on Keupstrasse was, to his surprise, only immediately before Atilla Ö's NSU trial began.
experienced, seven years after the bomb explosion, says Abullah Ö.
"To be quite honest, I didn't believe him that his mother was in Keupstrasse at the time. But I couldn't prove that she wasn't there."
When the explosive device detonated, the mother is said to have been in a restaurant next to the barber shop - together with her friend Meral Keskin.
This is what the mother's lawyer wrote in his application for admission to the Munich Higher Regional Court.
"Would you trust Atilla Ö. To come up with Meral Keskin so that his mother could have a witness for her presence in the restaurant?" Asks Judge Theiner.
Abdullah Ö.
is silent for a moment, then sighs.
"I dont know."
Icon: The mirror