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Defendant Elmar J. with defense attorney Ashraf Abouzeid in the Paderborn Regional Court
Photo: Peter Hartenfelser / IMAGO
The man, whose name played a role in the trial of Walter Lübcke's murder, strolls down the aisle in an emphatically relaxed manner, his left hand in his pocket.
In the sight of cameras, Elmar J. enters Hall 205 of the Paderborn Regional Court: a 66-year-old pensioner from a village in East Westphalia, his hair combed back.
Elmar J. looks around as if he finally wants to get it over with.
His lawyer Ashraf Abouzeid will later say that J. has been living for more than two and a half years with the charge of "presumably partly responsible" for the death of the Kassel District President Walter Lübcke.
The CDU politician was shot on the terrace of his house on June 1, 2019: from a very short distance, in the temple, with a Rossi .38 caliber revolver.
The fatal attack is considered to be the first right-wing terrorist-motivated murder of a politician in the Federal Republic - and Elmar J. is said to have sold the gun to the murderer.
The public prosecutor's office accuses him of deliberate and illegal acts of negligent homicide and violations of the weapons law.
The allegation is based on Ernst's testimony
The man from the Höxter district is said to have taken 1,100 euros from right-wing extremist Stephan Ernst in 2016 for the murder weapon and ammunition.
Both the buyer and seller are said to have not had a gun license, according to the prosecution.
Ernst's nationalist, racist attitude was well known to J.
Prosecutor Julia Florczak argues that there is also the certainty that Ernst also took weapons for self-defense.
But did the 66-year-old know what Stephan Ernst was up to?
Did he trust him to attack someone and accept his death?
Ashraf Abouzeid, his lawyer, denies this on J's behalf.
His client had violated the weapons law, yes, J. regretted that too and knew that he should be punished for this - but that Walter Lübcke's death was caused negligently, this accusation is unfounded.
J. sold Stephan Ernst weapons, yes, but not the Rossi revolver caliber .38.
The allegation is based on Stephan Ernst's testimony.
He stated that he had explored the Lübcke family's house from February 2016 and bought the Rossi revolver from Elmar J. in 2017.
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To what extent one can assess this information as credible and the alleged murderer as credible, in room 205 Chief Public Prosecutor Dieter Killmer, representative of the Federal Public Prosecutor in the proceedings against Ernst, expresses himself.
He makes no secret of the fact that the many versions that Stephan Ernst dished out in court about the course of the assault on Walter Lübcke made it much more difficult to come to terms with the crime.
"Is that stupid?"
J's neighbor and tenant also stirs up doubts about the thesis that Ernst received the murder weapon from J.
After Ernst's arrest, J. told him: "I sold him a 4mm gun four years ago, is that stupid?" At the time, J. feared that Walter Lübcke had been killed with this gun.
There was never any mention of a Rossi revolver.
Elmar J. faces a prison sentence of up to five years if convicted of negligent homicide.
J. has already found out what it's like to live behind bars.
He was in custody for more than six months after being arrested in June 2019.
The federal prosecutor's office had investigated him for aiding and abetting the murder of Walter Lübcke and searched several forest areas for weapons in the Höxter district.
The attorney general was convinced at the time: When J. sold several weapons to Stephan Ernst between 2014 and 2018, he knew that he was a right-wing extremist who was prepared to use violence.
In January 2020 the Federal Court of Justice overturned the arrest warrant and the case is now being heard in Paderborn.
»An affinity to the› Third Reich ‹«
Police officers describe how the pensioner lived: cartridges in the attic, in the toolbox, in the desk drawer and in the bedroom chest of drawers.
According to a chief detective, his impression was: "Put it down, forgotten, but not hidden." Empty gun cases in the house and in the garage, a Reich war flag in the shed.
According to investigators, there was a wooden figure on the bar of the empty restaurant where J. is said to have sat with friends.
The wall would have been decorated with pictures full of Wehrmacht idyll.
"They should be seen," says the chief detective, "especially the male." J. knew exactly what he was allowed to own and what not, he knew his limits.
Through his lawyer Abouzeid, J. admits "an affinity with the 'Third Reich'", that his father fought for the armed forces and returned from the war wounded.
Was J. properly instructed?
The detective who questioned J. after his arrest describes how he spoke "without periods and commas";
of decorative weapons and daggers that he sold.
Chairman Eric Schülke wants to know whether he gave any information about the "intensity of radicalism" of the alleged murderer of Walter Lübcke.
Yes, he remembered an unusual sentence that Ernst is supposed to have said: If something happens in the Kassel area, he, Ernst, is "on the screen of the whole police".
It remains doubtful that she dutifully instructed Elmar J. and informed him about the choice of a public defender.
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The Lübcke family after the verdict in the murder trial: The pain that remains From Frankfurt am Main reports Julia Jüttner
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Lübcke trial: a senseless, terrifying actA comment by Thomas Fischer
Criminal trial: not everyone is asked.
For reasonsA column by Thomas Fischer
The trial of the murder of Walter Lübcke at the Frankfurt Higher Regional Court lasted seven and a half months.
It was the legal reappraisal of a crime committed against a politician who upheld the values of this state during the refugee crisis in autumn 2015 and had been stylized as an enemy image by right-wing extremists.
Walter Lübcke had to die because he campaigned for refugees to be accommodated and reminded of the Federal Republic's historical responsibility.
The Lübcke family is following the process
In January 2021, the State Security Senate sentenced Stephan Ernst to life imprisonment.
In addition, the judges determined the particular gravity of the guilt.
A release from prison after 15 years is therefore unlikely.
The court reserved the right to subsequent preventive detention.
The judgment is not yet final.
And that's why Stephan Ernst, contrary to what was planned, will not testify in the Paderborn Regional Court on Friday.
Mustafa Kaplan, his lawyer, sent word that Ernst would make use of his right to refuse to provide information.
Just as Elmar J. had done in the trial against Ernst at the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt am Main.
Walter Lübcke's family is following the process in Paderborn through the media, says their spokesman, Dirk Metz.
"But she does not have high hopes that he can or will help to clarify the circumstances of the murder of Walter Lübcke," said the spokesman.
"Since seller and buyer have the same attitude, Elmar J. certainly did not assume that Ernst bought the weapon for self-defense."
