The verdict for the courtcase against the comrade from amsterdam, which had been taking place in the last month, will be announced at 11:30 on thursday 8th december, at the justizzentrum of Aachen, Adalbertsteinweg 92

Today 5th December the court listened to the argumentation of the pleas by the defense and prosecution, who asked for the charges of “armed bank robbery, unlawful deprivation of people’s freedom and illegal weapons possession”, 6 and a half years.

come show support in court or solidarity on the streets.

Today, 1/12 was the final day of trial for the presentation of the evidence for or against the comrade from Amsterdam accused by the prosecution of Aachen of a bank robbery that took place in July 2013 in the same city.

This means that on the next court date (5/12) both the defense and the prosecution will argument their pleas, marking the conclusion of this court case. Today the judge said that the verdict could already be on Monday 5th December, but he spoke about the possibility that the two judges and the two jurors could also take more time to deliberate and pronounce the verdict on Thursday 8th. Both court dates are scheduled to begin at 9:30, thus, for anyone wanting to be present, remember that the lines and extra controls could take up to 45 minutes to get through. (Be there latest at 8:45!!)

Since the last update an other carousel of experts and police officers have proudly fulfilled their dutiful collaboration to this repulsive judicial circus.

On monday the 28th too early in the morning, we had the pleasure of having to listen to a keen cop which has been on the case since the beginning, picking the comrade up in Bulgaria in July 2015, and attending most of the visits she had in prison. During the investigation this cop interviewed prison guards asking them if in fact the comrade spoke german. They responded affirmatively, but clearly stating that there was a very distinct dutch accent and with frequent grammatical mistakes.  Trying to pass herself off as a language expert, the cop blatantly proposed that our comrade was in fact acting out a role in which she was pretending all along that she could not speak perfect german. If the cop’s statement were true, it would fit with the declaration of one of the two bank employees, who said that the woman in disguise spoke good german.

After this came the DNA expert, who could only in fact state that he is sure that the DNA was of the comrade, but could in no way determine when, how or why this trace appeared on the pistols.

During the afternoon on the same day the judge took into consideration and read out loud a letter that the prosecution presents as the words of the comrade. This letter “With midnight in one’s heart”, first appeared on Avalanche, anarchist correspondence in December 2015. This letter was published anonymously.

The prosecution presented an other document sent them by their friends in catalunia, the Mossos d’esquadra  talking about their anti-terrorist investigation against anarchists of Barcelona linked to the GAC (gruppos anarchistas coordinados). The main point of this document, was the insinuation that the mossos needed to find a way of explaining how their constructed terrorist organization had financed themselves. An eager attempt to build a motive, to which even the judge commented with “we cannot verify any of this”.

On thursday 1st December the court gave (a lot of) time to a professor of an institute for biological forensics. This professor of control and creepiness appears in court about 110 times a year to give her valuable opinion on the likelihood of a given cctv image being compatible and comparable with the features of a suspected individual. This professor of perversion of life, after turning a human body into a biometrical algorithm, then proceeds, through a mathematical calculation, to classify on a scale of 0 to 4 the likelihood of the match. However, in this case, given the poor image quality of the cctv and the good disguise of the early morning customer, she could not say much. So after scrutinizing the small sections of the body which were more or less visible through the footage,  she came to the invaluable expert conclusion that there are no distinctive similarities between the images of the cctv in the bank and the comrade.

In the afternoon, the court went over some insignificant bank transactions which took place during the summer of 2013.

On an other note, it was pleasing for us to see that the court house was already busy with some christmas decorations. Over the past weeks, some little elfs of the night have decorated with some lovely green and red paint bombs the facade of the building…

solidarity and rage

The courtcase against the comrade from amsterdam is taking place at the
Landesgericht of Aachen, following the pre-announced days.

So far the court has heard witness statements by the two bank employees
which were present in the bank on that morning in july 2013, describing a
robbery that took place before the opening times for the public, where
three people entered the aachener bank (which by the way has now been shut down)
with the first arriving employee. They waited about 5 minutes for the
second employee to arrive, as they both needed to be present to open the
safe. The three intruders took 42000 euros. The two employees describe
then being put into the office of the bank and tied with tie-ribs behind
their backs. Neither of them is sure to have had a weapon drawn or pointed at them during this time, although they were threatened to collaborate or be shot.
After being tied they did not see the three unusual customers again.
There are no witnesses declaring that they saw these three people leave.
The bound employees were liberated by a third employee, who arrived a
few minutes after the off-hour customers had left. she sounded the alarm and then untied them.

The bank was closed down for one week after the robbery to permit the
forensic police to scavenge. The following week the bank was back in
business. On that friday, exactly 11 days after the robbery took place, an other employee, while looking for some receipts in a cupboard, found himself holding an alarm pistol, and also observed there was a second one. The diligent worker immediately called
the police, who assumed these weapons were associated with the robbery.
On one of these two pistols was found the dna of the comrade from
amsterdam. Her DNA was matched after more than one year later, by the
Manchester police, who had taken a sample from her in 2009 after the
arrest for a minor crime.

None of the witnesses have given the minimum indication of recognizing
the comrade, nor have talked about any detail leading in her direction.
They also declared that they would not be able to recognize anyone from
that encounter.

Besides these witnesses the court has heard from various police
officers, those who arrived on the spot some minutes after the employees
gave the alarm. Also from them there were no statements of any significance.

Then took the stand heer Kessel, the police officer leading the
investigation, who disclosed the different steps of this investigation,
however, hiding behind some legal paragraph where he did not have to
talk about the details of the investigation which would reveal police
methods or the ongoing investigation against other suspects. He then
proceeded to, incited by the prosecutor, to talk about vague and
circumstantial ties with other anarchists.

This is an update regards the unfolding of the court case up to the 22nd of november 2016. More updates will follow.

By the 1st of december all the evidence will be presented in court.
On the 5th there will be the pleas of both the prosecution and the defense.
The day of the verdict should be announced on the 5th.

Solidarity with the comrade facing trial

on the 4th of November the first session took place of the trial against the anarchist arrested in Amsterdam accused by the prosecution of aachen of a bank robbery (from 2013).

Although at the courthouse there was an abundant presence of cops of all functions and uniforms (riot police in the courtyard and inside the building, an id check for anyone attending the courtcase, cops controlling some people on the streets), over 30 friends and comrades were present in support.

There was a banner outside the court building which demanded immediate release for the comrade.

The session lasted no longer than one hour, just a few formalities, the reading of the charges and the arranging of the schedule for the trial. The next date is thursday 17th November at 10:30. We remind everyone who wants to be present that they should arrive to the courtroom no later than  9:45, as getting through security takes quite some time.