Dubliner Daniel Tatlow-Devally had already spent 316 days on remand in Germany when two Irish parliamentarians paid a prison visit on Tuesday.
Sinn Féin TD Mairéad Farrell and Richard Boyd Barrett of People Before Profit-Solidarity then joined five other Irish politicians at Wednesday’s session of proceedings in Stuttgart against the 32-year-old and four other Berlin-based activists.
Tatlow-Devally and the four others – two Germans, one UK and one Spanish citizen – face charges of trespassing and causing an estimated €1 million in criminal damage to an Israeli-owned arms factory in Ulm, an hour from Stuttgart, on September 4th last.
The central facts are not in dispute: the five filmed and posted online clips of themselves smashing up the factory as part of a protest against the involvement of its ultimate owner, arms company Elbit Systems, in Israel’s Gaza war.
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Tatlow-Devally told the trial in May that “urgent humanitarian concerns” were the group’s motivation. By damaging production capacity in Germany, they hoped to “make a fuss ... in the hope to at least interrupt” its deliveries to Israel and thus further civilian casualties.
The defendants deny wrongdoing and challenge the proportionality of their treatment in the nearly 10 months since. Are they dangerous criminals, as the prosecutor claims – or, as their families see them, human rights defenders?
In the case of Tatlow-Devally, remand conditions include 23-hour solitary lock-up, highly limited visits and heavily screened communications. Meanwhile the Dubliner’s family say holding the trial in the high-security Stammheim prison-court complex outside Stuttgart smacks of a “show trial” and guilt by insinuation.
The complex was opened in 2019 on the site of an earlier facility used in the trials of members of the extreme-left terrorist group the Red Army Faction, which was behind a 1970s crime and killing spree.
The five on trial now in Stammheim, the defence and families point out, have no criminal records and are facing charges for attacks on property, not people.
Boyd Barrett said the five were being treated and tried in “inhumane conditions” under laws and in a manner “normally reserved for terrorists and organised criminals”.
The five were “engaged in an act of civil disobedience, but they are a danger to no one” he said, noting the company they targeted produced weapons aiding a war that “the Irish Government itself has said is a genocidal and illegal campaign”.
Stuttgart district court dismisses the criticisms. The venue and security measures – including dozens of armed police posted inside and outside the chamber – are appropriate, it says, for what has been classified a “state protection” trial. All visitors pass through airport-style security and are frisked. No phones are allowed in the courtroom and only accredited press may take in a pen, paper or laptop.
The court is responding to a hard line taken early on by Germany’s federal prosecutor. Beyond criminal damage and trespass, the five are being charged with membership of a criminal organisation and use of symbols linked to Hamas, classified in Germany as a terrorist organisation.
Federal prosecutor Ronny Stengel has accused the five of forming a “sabotage squad” that views the use of violence as legitimate. The pretrial detention conditions, prosecutors say, are standard for anyone facing similar charges in the state of Baden-Württemberg. If convicted, the five could each face up to five years in prison.
Among the many causes of concern is the court’s refusal to grant a defence demand for either a recording or transcript of proceedings. People Before Profit-Solidarity TD Ruth Coppinger, another member of this week’s Irish delegation, described this as an “outrage”.
While audio recordings of court proceedings have been standard in Irish courts for more than a decade, Germany allows this only in exceptional circumstances, including constitutional court hearings or hearings of historic significance. The court has followed prosecutor arguments that the latter is not the case here.
Another stand-off continues over lawyer-client in-court communication. The Irish delegation made incorrect claims this week that the defendants were unable to communicate with their lawyers in court and that no translation was available.
At present the five sit together behind a security screen, with their lawyers in front of them, wearing headphones to follow proceedings in German or via a simultaneous translation in English and Spanish.
Tatlow-Devally has good German and each defendant has a microphone to speak with their legal team. In multiple motions filed by defence lawyers, however, they say these arrangements make confidential communication impossible and impede a fair trial.
There are no such complaints at an identical, if larger, courtroom next door. Defence lawyer Christopher Singerter, involved in a coup attempt trial, has “no problem” with the screens and microphone/headset set-up, though “it is always nicer when the client is seated right alongside”.
“The case law on this subject is now clear,” he said, “otherwise the building in Stammheim would not have been planned this way.”
Given debate over everything the Stuttgart court has banned, it is worth noting everything the court allows. This includes extended standing ovations, applause, cheers and whistles from family members and supporters in the public gallery every time the five enter and leave the courtroom.
It is likely the court’s second glass security screen renders inaudible in the courtroom much of the crowd participation in the public gallery: frequent muttering, angry outbursts at the judge and humming and singing of resistance songs.
The growing tensions in Stuttgart have at their heart different legal systems and radically differing views on Israel, its response to the October 7th massacre, and solidarity with Palestine.
Though the prosecution has to prove the claim that the five accused are members of a criminal organisation, the claim alone has triggered a self-perpetuating tsunami of security measures and logistics both expensive and extensive. And all at an aggravated human cost to five people with no criminal records who do not dispute carrying out the attack.
The defence team are fighting a different case entirely, aiming to prove the court is prejudiced and that the activists carried out a justified act of civil disobedience. The latter will necessitate a deep dive into Elbit’s Ulm plant operations, including detailed evidence of how its output aided Israel’s war in Gaza.
If the ill-tempered proceedings in Stuttgart continue at this pace, with non-consecutive hearing days planned until January, a verdict on Tatlow-Devally will come only after 16 months behind bars.
