The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Left-wing extremism trial in Dresden: »Breaking Nazis«

2022-05-28T12:19:05.129Z


An investigator disguises himself, a victim is in custody: The search for the truth in the case of the alleged violent criminal Lina E. is difficult. But slowly, a picture emerges in court.


Enlarge image

Defendant Lina E.: Was she in command of attacks on right-wing extremists?

Photo: Jens Schlueter / AFP

With a dark mustache and large, black-rimmed glasses, the man enters the high-security room of the Dresden Higher Regional Court.

"The witness looks like Heinz Rudolf Kunze," states a defense attorney.

But the witness is the investigator in charge of "Soko LinX", a special commission of the State Criminal Police Office (LKA) in Saxony to investigate left-wing extremist crimes.

The defense hardly recognizes him that day.

"It can't be true that police officers are all disguised now," says defense attorney Ulrich von Klinggräff.

"We propose that the witness disrobe and remove his obviously false beard." But the presiding judge cannot see any masquerade in the witness.

"And I'm certainly not going to ask him now whether he's always had the beard." Instead, the judge asks for personal details - which leads to the next dispute.

The LKA man does not want to give his first name or his age.

He refers to the audience in the hall, which he assigns to the »left spectrum«.

"Are you concerned about personal attacks?" the judge asks.

"Of course," says the witness.

»The police are among the well-known political opponents of the clientele.

We can become a target at any time.« The judge expresses his understanding.

“It is known that there is a latent willingness to use violence in the radical Antifa scene”.

Defender of Klinggräff, actually a man of calm tones, is loud.

"It's just mood-mongering!

Public propaganda and prejudice!”

Her fiancé has gone into hiding

How violent the accused are is the central question in the trial against Lina E., 27, Lennart A., 27, Jannis R., 36, and Philipp M., 27. According to the indictment, they are said to have formed a conspiratorial group to hunt down neo-Nazis.

In Saxony and Thuringia, between October 2018 and February 2020, they are said to have injured a former NPD city councilor, a member of the "Young Nationalists" and eleven other people in a total of six attacks.

Investigations are ongoing against five other suspects.

Among them is Johann G., 29, Lina E's fiancé. He has been in hiding since June 2020.

The Federal Prosecutor's Office accuses the accused, among other things, of membership in a left-wing extremist criminal organization.

Anyone who belongs to a group that beats neo-Nazis with iron bars endangers public safety because this calls into question the state's monopoly on the use of force and individuals are also not allowed to enforce anti-fascist interests with violence.

It is a complex case that has been under the presidency of Judge Hans Schlueter-Staats for 53 days.

The accused remain silent.

One worker was hit particularly hard in January 2019.

Tobias N., in his early 30s, was out with a colleague in Connewitz, a left-wing alternative district of Leipzig, to clean gutters.

He wore the cap of a right-wing fashion label.

A friend's gift, he tells the court.

In his youth, the witness himself belonged to the right-wing scene.

Today he says about his past: »That was nonsense.«

»This is a Nazi, he deserves it«

The masked people didn't ask what the hat was all about.

"That's a Nazi, he deserves it," "a girl" is said to have said to his colleague.

The woman stopped him from helping Tobias N. with pepper spray.

The first hit was in the face.

Tobias N. fell to the ground, the beating didn't stop.

His cheekbone and the bones around his right eye were fractured.

"That was us," Johann G. said about the attack while driving.

What he didn't know: The interior of the car was being monitored, one of the side effects of the suspicion of a crime under Section 129, membership in a criminal organization.

Some people call him a "sniffer paragraph".

But the defense asks: What exactly does "we" mean?

A specific group?

Or the radical left scene in general?

Johann G. has »Hate Cops« tattooed on his fingers and has a fondness for »Gucci« baseball caps.

The authorities regard him as a left-wing extremist who the police believe is capable of serious acts of violence.

Nationwide, only nine people fall into this category.

The fact that Lina E., unlike her co-defendants, has been in custody for a year and a half is also thanks to him.

Because Johann G. went into hiding, the magistrates see her as a risk of absconding.

Does a letter burden the group?

In her apartment in Leipzig-Connewitz, the investigators found a memory card with photos.

They show a jacked-up tram car in a workshop hall, freshly sprayed with graffiti.

In one picture, Johann G. looks into the camera from the wagon.

The lettering »Nakam Crew« can be read on the train.

Investigators found an Instagram account of the same name.

Then photos with other trains on which "Nakam" is sprayed.

It's a reference to history.

After 1945, a Jewish underground organization of that name decided to retaliate against Nazis.

»Nakam« is Hebrew and means »revenge«.

Another meaning can be read on the Instagram account.

There it says that »Nakam« stands for: »destroy Nazis«.

The defense says the allegation of a criminal organization was fabricated.

There was no evidence of a conspiratorial group.

But there is a letter that was in the apartment of the accused Lennart A. In it, the author criticized the isolation of a "group" whose behavior "no longer has anything to do with radical left-wing politics."

She insults a "Gucci" as an "Antifa bloke" and denounces patriarchal behavior.

For the federal prosecutor, the letter is an indication of the existence of the criminal organization.

The defense interprets him differently.

Criticism from outside stands in contradiction to a clandestine small group.

And "nothing more to do with radical left politics" could also mean: not left enough.

And how does patriarchal behavior match the accusation that Lina E. was in charge of two attacks?

Masked storm the pub

In October 2019, masked people with batons stormed the neo-Nazi bar "Bull's Eye" in Eisenach.

When the host and guests fought back, a woman is said to have given the signal to stop.

That's what Leon R., the landlord, and Maximilian A., a friend, say in court.

Maximilian A. had not yet mentioned a woman's voice to the police.

And Leon R. said in one of his first interrogations: "Nobody" spoke.

In December 2019, Leon R. was attacked again.

This time in front of his house in Eisenach.

He fought back with a carpet knife.

Again a woman is said to have given the command to withdraw.

The attackers turned to his comrades' car, which had brought Leon R. home.

Maximilian A. and two others were injured.

But how credible are the statements by Leon R. and Maximilian A.?

They were arrested a few weeks after their testimony in court

.

The accusation: membership in a right-wing extremist criminal organization.

The martial arts group "Knockout 51", which Maximilian A. portrayed in the trial against Lina E. as a harmless leisure group of young men interested in sports, is said to be an association of militant neo-Nazis who hunt leftists - with Leon R. as the leader.

The Federal Prosecutor's Office also suspects Leon R. of being a supporter of the racist terrorist group "Atomic Weapons Division Germany".

In the USA, the authorities accuse the »Nuclear Weapons Division« of five murders.

The real license plates were on the back seat

Contradictory statements by a neo-Nazi suspected of being a terrorist are hardly suitable for condemning Lina E. as a left-wing extremist commando, according to her defense attorney von Klinggräff.

The judge, however, states: "Anyone who does not tell the truth in relation to their own crimes does not necessarily tell the truth on all counts."

There is little doubt that Lina E. was involved in at least the second attack on Leon R.

After the fact, they were caught in Eisenach in a VW Golf with stolen license plates.

The car is registered to her mother.

The real license plates were on the back seat.

A mixed DNA trace was found at another crime scene, which the federal prosecutor assigned to her.

In the apartments of Lina E. and Lennart A., the investigators found numerous mobile phones and SIM cards registered on fake personal data.

He knows that from organized crime, says the investigator in charge of "Soko Linx".

Communication with the SIM cards lasted a few hours and then never again.

The time periods match the attack on the "Bull's Eye" and an allegedly foiled attack on a neo-Nazi in June 2020 in Leipzig.

According to the indictment, Lina E. was said to have been ready for action near his house at the time.

Not true, say her lawyers.

At the time in question, she went to a supermarket 4.5 kilometers away and then ate a vegetarian kebab.

A bank statement and photos with doner kebabs should prove that.

And the accused Philipp M. also presented an alibi on the 36th day of the trial.

Geodata from his mobile phone, a monitored phone call and the video surveillance of his house should prove that he did not storm into the "Bull's Eye" in Eisenach in 2019, but was on a pub tour in his hometown of Berlin.

If his alibi is valid, he could be closer to an acquittal.

Because unlike Lina E., who is said to have been involved in all the crimes, the evidence against him is rather thin.

It is an arduous search for the truth.

The Senate has scheduled further hearing days until August.

Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2022-05-28

You may like

News/Politics 2024-02-08T17:03:15.618Z

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.