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Defendant Lina E. in the court in Dresden: greeted by supporters with applause
Photo: JENS SCHLUETER / AFP
On this day of the trial, three defendants appear in T-shirts with the inscription: "Free Lina". The presiding judge calls the defense counsel to his room. After that, the "Free Lina" demands must disappear. Lennart A., Jannis R. and Philipp M. take off their T-shirts. Only then is Lina E. taken to the high security room of the Higher Regional Court (OLG) Dresden on Thursday. She has been in custody for a year and her co-defendants are at large.
Lina E. is greeted with applause from her mother, friends and supporters.
For them, the 26-year-old is an upright anti-fascist who is stylized as a terrorist by the Federal Prosecutor's Office.
Lina E. smiles and waves through the safety glass into the audience area.
If you mind the long detention, then it is not to be noticed.
She is silent in court.
Lina E. and the three co-defendants have had to answer before the State Security Senate of the OLG Dresden since September.
According to the indictment, they are said to belong to a criminal, left-wing extremist organization that has been hunting actual or alleged neo-Nazis since August 2018 and brutally beaten up several people.
For the federal prosecutor's office, Lina E. is one of the heads of the group.
"Nakam" stands for "destroy Nazis"
Lina E. studied educational science at the University of Halle-Wittenberg, she has not yet appeared under criminal law.
Unlike Johann G., 27, who, according to the indictment, also belongs to the group and was already in jail for left-wing crimes.
Johann G. has been in hiding since summer 2020.
Lina E. and Johann G. are considered a couple by the authorities.
On Wednesday and Thursday, the investigators presented evidence in the courtroom that incriminate Lina E. and the other defendants.
An officer of the State Criminal Police Office (LKA) Saxony evaluated a memory card that was in Lina E.'s apartment in Leipzig.
As a witness he testifies that the officer belongs to the "Soko LinX", a special commission that tries to investigate left-wing extremist acts of violence.
The court shows some photos in the room.
You can see a factory hall with tram cars, in one picture Johann G. looks into the camera from a car.
He's wearing a Gucci baseball cap and a "Hate Cops" tattoo can be seen on his fingers.
The car is sprayed with graffiti.
One of the lettering reads: »Nakam Crew«.
The investigators researched the social networks, they found an Instagram account with the same name.
The photos that are posted there show one motif above all: the writing »Nakam«.
Sometimes sprayed on walls, sometimes on walls, sometimes on trains.
Does one of the defendants appear in "New Germany"?
The presiding judge asks the LKA man what the meaning of the word "nakam" means.
"Destroy Nazis," he says.
This is how it is explained in the profile of the Instagram account.
A defense lawyer for Lina E. inquires whether the policeman is aware of a "historical organization" by that name.
No, he replies, he doesn't know such a group.
In fact, after 1945 there was a group of Jewish Holocaust survivors who wanted to retaliate after the systematic mass murder of the Nazis.
It became known as the "Nakam" group.
Nakam is Hebrew and means vengeance.
The LKA man also speaks of a newspaper article that appeared in July 2019 in the former SED newspaper »Neues Deutschland«.
It is about a "noam" who talks about his time in prison and justifies violence against rights as a legitimate response to "racist agitation".
The man who is described in the article is Johann G., says the investigator.
No face can be seen in photos accompanying the article, but fingers with a "Hate Cops" tattoo and a Gucci baseball cap.
Investigators found more photos in Lina E.'s apartment and in her car.
Lina E. and Johann G. can be seen on it, individually and together, even on vacation in Albania.
The LKA man found indications of flight tickets for a corresponding trip in September 2018 in Lina E.
A pink sweater on the dashboard
Another investigator also shows photos from a memory card from E.'s apartment. These show a street from Leipzig in the direction of Wurzen in Saxony and a small street near a sports field in Kühren near Wurzen.
The pictures were apparently taken from the passenger seat of a moving car, with a pink sweater on the dashboard.
According to the metadata, the photos were taken on August 7, 2018. Two and a half months later, on October 30, Cedric S. was brutally beaten up by several masked people in Kühren at around 7 p.m.
He was on his way to soccer training and is a member of the youth organization of the NPD.
The Federal Prosecutor's Office is convinced that it was Lina E. who sat in the car and spied on the later crime scene.