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Photo: Sebastian Willnow / picture alliance / dpa
The defendants say there can be no question of physical harm.
They would have followed the service regulations and abused no one.
Five suspended employees of the Dresden correctional facility (JVA) have had to answer to the lay judges of the Dresden district court since Friday.
Correctional officers are said to have abused prisoners in the summer of 2018.
The charge is, among other things, dangerous bodily harm in office.
Among the accused is Daniel Zabel, 43 years old and a member of the state board of the Saxony AfD.
In 2019 he was sentenced to 11 months imprisonment for violating official secrets.
After a fatal knife attack in Chemnitz in August 2018, he photographed and distributed the arrest warrant for an Iraqi suspect at the time.
The Iraqi was innocently pilloried and investigations against him were dropped.
The proceedings at that time meant that Zabel now has to answer in court again – together with four colleagues.
The investigators came across a WhatsApp group.
The public prosecutor's office found evidence from the chats that immigrant prisoners were being mistreated.
According to the indictment, in July 2018 Zabel and the co-defendants Joel S., 31, and Andreas B., 40, attacked a 28-year-old Tunisian.
Hamza C. was held in a specially secured cell after behaving aggressively.
When he hid behind a mattress and was no longer visible, the three accused are said to have entered the cell.
Andreas B. is said to have brought the man to the ground and knelt on his head, while Zabel and Joel S. are said to have kicked and hit him.
According to the prosecutor, the detainee is said to have suffered at least three bruises on his upper body.
Hidden behind the mattress
The defendants deny assault.
Zabel has his defense attorney Frank Hannig read a statement on his behalf.
Accordingly, there can be no talk of excessive use of force.
That evening, around 9:30 p.m., his colleague Joel S., who was still in training at the time, noticed that the light in the cell was switched off and the food flaps on the door were open, contrary to the rule.
Detainees in such a room would have to be monitored around the clock by a so-called seat guard.
Zabel had been called.
He first shone a flashlight into the room, then turned the light back on and closed the flaps.
Suddenly the prisoner kicked and banged on the door.
He called Zabel "Nazi" and "asshole" and Joel S.
The accused Andreas B. then entered the cell.
The prisoner pushed the mattress onto the colleague.
They then brought the prisoner to the ground and fixed him.
Zabel tied his hands behind his back.
"Only then did he calm down." They removed the mattress from the room and bolted the door.
Zabel's message: There can be no talk of inappropriate use of force.
He does not want to answer questions from the court or other parties involved in the process.
Then Joel S speaks. He reads his statement from the sheet.
He essentially confirms what his colleague said.
He says the prisoner yelled, complained about the light, "became louder and more aggressive," and then hid behind the mattress.
That's why he, Joel S., should have taken the mattress out of the cell.
Andreas B. held the prisoner's head, Zabel and S. fixed his body - "a common de-escalation technique".
"I did not commit the alleged dangerous bodily harm in office," says S. He acted according to service regulations and the instructions of his two experienced colleagues.
He doesn't want to answer questions either.
"No one was hurt, no one was mistreated," adds Andreas B.'s defense attorney, 40, for his client.
Hamza C. himself will probably not be able to speak in court.
He was deported to Tunisia in 2020.
He is represented in the trial by co-counsel Rita Belter.
One wrote: "Make it look like an accident".
Supposedly just for fun
Six days before the alleged attack, Andreas B. and the other accused Tim W., 53, are said to have maltreated an Afghan prisoner with punches to the upper body and head.
The prisoner is said to have repeatedly called for fire to smoke.
Tim W's testimony in court is extremely brief.
He has no recollection of such an event.
"I can't say anything, nothing at all."
The procedure for this allegation against a third official has now been set against payment of 6,000 euros.
The correctional officer -- Frank L., 58 -- is due to testify this afternoon.
"You can't avoid naming horse and rider here," says the presiding judge
Roland Wirlitsch.
L. says the detainee aggressively stormed out of the cell.
His colleagues would then have brought him to the ground.
"I don't know anything about beatings, I haven't seen them."
"There's this chat," says the judge, quoting
.
'Mr Wrynose.
Desperately wanted fire and didn't see our negative attitude at all.
Knocked on the cell door and wanted to fuck my mother.
Tztztz.« – »9:28 pm he then kissed the station corridor and vowed to get better.
Fire was no longer an issue either.« The witness asserts that the prisoner »really had a crooked nose«.
He doesn't say much more.
“Why are you paying 6,000 euros if everything was so unproblematic?” asks the prosecutor.
His lawyer advised him to do so.
In addition, he did not want to sit in the dock.
"Because I didn't do anything."
Co-plaintiff Belter confronts him with another chat message.
“Look away from the seat watch.
Make it look like an accident.” She repeats the last sentence, adding a question mark to it.
"Make it look like an accident?" A quote from a film starring Bruce Willis, the witness says.
"That was fun."