Short reports: February 2002

28.02.2002: 57^th day in court

Axel H. freed after personal declaration - more and more doubts about credibility of crown witness

The recital of a personal statement of the accused Axel H. today, led to the end of 26 months of imprisonment on remand for the accused.

In his declaration he said that in 1986 he was involved in discussing the so-called "refugee campaign" within the structures of the RZ under the code name "Anton" as well as having taken care of the two illegals "Jon" and "Judith". After only loose contacts with the RZ in 1987, he then split completely from the organisation in the beginning of 1988. He was not involved in any attacks and there had never been any explosives hidden in the Mehringhof in the time during which he had been caretaker of the building.

During the following interrogation of the crown witness Tarek Mousli, serious contradictions emerged. His description of the room where the explosive was allegedly hidden diverges in main characteristics from those rooms in which (with his help via a live video line and without any success) the explosives were searched for.

Further, in a table the crown witness made to portray contacts between RZ members allegedely known by him, he had made notes in forms of letters if he actually knew of the contacts or merely suspected they existed. These notes were then partially changed and corrected by him.

21.02.2002: 56^th day in court

In the end, it is "not recallable"

Today, the questioning of the crown witness by the defence on the declaration of Rudolf Sch. was continued. The exclusive theme was the bomb attack on the Central Social Security Office for Asylum Seekers (ZSA) on 6.2.1987. Schindler had said that this attack had been "Mousli's project", which both of them had conducted alone. In Mousli's version, all accused had taken part in the attack. He claims he was only involved in the security measures.

The justified doubts about Mousli's version have not been plucked out of thin air. Whilst during his first interrogations he incriminated all the accused, he only took back his accusation against Harald G. after the BKA intervened. The police kindly told him that Harald G. had actually been in police custody at the time of the attack. It was impossible to clarify today, if Harald G. had taken part in a meeting one week after the attack, as Mousli had then claimed. Mousli thought it was "not recallable" if Harald G. was there or not. It also remained unclear why Harald G. was supposed to be involved in this action at all, as the police led investigations against him at the time. In relation to these investigations, his house was searched in Decemeber 1986, three months before the attack. According to Mousli, this did not stop the RZ to involve Harald G. in the preparation of the attack in January 1987. It also remained unclear why the action should have to be secured by all the RZ members and why Matthias B. should have played a role in the choice of the object to be attacked.

15.02.2002: 55^th day in court

Now word stands against word

Mousli denies central points of Schindler's statement

After more than a two week break, the presiding judge Hennig confronted Mousli with the statement of Rudolf Schindler today. In his statement to court of 18.1.2002, Schindler had confirmed his membership in the RZ and given partial admissions, but accused Mousli of far-reaching perjury. According to Schindler, Mousli had attempted to play down his involvement in actions and incriminate other persons with a mixture of lies and partial truths.

Today's main themes were the contradictory statements of Schindler and Mousli on the structure of the Berlin RZ and on the events surrounding the attacks on Hollenberg, Korbmacher and the ZSA. Mousli, who was obviously well prepared, largely defended his statements and accusations. Mousli's interrogation by the defence will be continued next week. Meanwhile, on grounds of a serious accident involving a family member, another one of the accused, Matthias Borgmann, was released from imprisonment on remand. 100,000 DM bail were demanded.