Today, 23rd of January, the first session of the trial took place against our anarchist comrades accused of robbing a Pax Bank branch in November 2014 in the city of Aachen.
In the room there was the representative of the Prosecutor’s Office, the judge, the defendants with their respective lawyers, a “people’s jury” (which does not take decisions), journalists, who were not permitted to record inside the courtroom in compliance with the request of the defense lawyers (although their cameras were rolling outside the courtroom), and the public composed of family, friends and comrades of the defendants, who occupied the 30-40 seats available.
After the procedural formalities and the reading of the accusations by the prosecutor (armed robbery and illegal weapons possession), one of the defense attorneys requested a deferral of three-weeks of the trial on the grounds that they did not have access to a part of the investigation files because the prosecution had not yet provided it. The lawyers argued that this hindered their ability to give a full and fair defense to their clients.
After hearing the arguments of both the prosecution and the defense, the judge ordered the audience to leave the courtroom a total of three times to deliberate in private with both parties before rejecting the postponement.
Among their arguments, the prosecution alleged the non-relevance of such documents for this case. Only in the end did they admit that there was an other part of the files that is related to the ongoing investigation, which they will not reveal.
Even the judge acknowledged that he did not see a big part of the files that the defense demanded, but countered this by noting that this is common in many trials. However the lawyers insisted that the relevance or not of these documents should be decided by the defense not by the prosecution.
Finally, the judge rejected the three-week deferral, but suspended the session on Thursday, January 26, to give the defense time to read the part of the investigation files to which access was granted (which is not all). The next session will be on February 9th, in principle the program of this day already includes some witnesses taking the stand, including a police officer of the Spanish state.
Several supporters of different countries were present to show their support during the 4 and a half hour session. Our comrades received our warmth in cold Germany, while an exchange of glances and gestures of complicity were passing back and forth all morning, transmitting force, demonstrating once again that in the face of repression and confinement, solidarity among those in struggle defies walls and borders.

[found here: https://solidaritatrebel.noblogs.org/]

On the 8th of December the court acquitted the comrade from Amsterdam accused of a bank robbery of 2013 in Aachen.

Over 60 people were present in court, to show their support. The judge refused the rough indications argumented by the prosecution that aimed to prove the presence of the comrade in the bank on that morning more then 3 years ago.

However, the prosecution has already announced their recourse to the revision court. This means that a judge now will revise the whole court case to see if there were any procedural mistakes or incoherence with the judges reasoning for his decision. In case this court finds any errors, the trial will have to be re-done in the court of Aachen, but by a different judge. If this recourse fails, these charges and juridical procedure will be closed.

However, there are two comrades still in pre-trial detention with charges for a bank robbery that was committed in 2014. Their trial will begin at the end of January.

We send strength and courage to the comrades inside, may they feel the solidarity through the concrete walls and iron bars.

The court of Aachen has set the dates for the start of the trial against the two comrades from Barcelona accused of expropriating a branch of Pax-Bank in Aachen in November of 2014. The court case will start on the 23rd of January and a total of 25 sessions are scheduled.

These two comrades were arrested on respectively 13th of April and 21st of June in a repressive operation carried out by the Mossos d’Esquadra and the german police, against the social center Blokes Fantasmas and multiple private residences. Since then, the two comrades from Barcelona are being kept in preventative custody in jails in Aachen and Köln. Let us not forget, that there is also a third comrade from Amsterdam who is being tried at the moment in an independent judicial process that is framed in the same repressive witch hunt that, stemming from the german bank robberies, has been carried out throughout Europe.

From Barcelona we reiterate our solidarity and unconditional support for these comrades and we invite all individuals and collectives to get together and be prepared for any new information or responses to the state’s aggression against those who rebel against its order and misery.

THE ANARCHISTS IMPRISONED IN GERMANY ARE NOT ALONE

WE WANT THEM FREE

WE WANT THEM AMONGST US

here are the specific dates:

23 and 26 january
9,13,14 and 16 febuary
2,6,9,10,13,20,23,27,28 and 31 march
3,7,24,25,28 april
5, 12, 18 and 22 may

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