34th day of trial against the 6 accused anti-fascists in the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court

After the presiding judge summarized the results of the evidence taken so far in the Budapest matter, the forensic doctor presented his report. He should assess whether the violence endangered the lives of those injured. For this purpose, the injuries were classified in terms of potential threat to life and which instruments were used and which injuries they led to. The main issue was to assess whether there was a concrete threat to the life of the Erfurt Nazi Beuthe in January 2023 and of Toth and Dudog in Budapest.

Eisenmenger had already commented on Beuthe and denied there was any real danger to his life. For his reports, he examined evidence (telescopic batons, rubber hammers and a Kubotan, a melee weapon), studied medical reports, listened to witness statements and viewed various crime scene videos and photos of the injured neo-Nazis. Photos after medical treatment do not allow precise assessments of the type and severity of injuries, he said restrictively. Although the medical reports reflect clinical findings, they are prepared without taking legal medical questions into account.

Eisenmenger explained that Laszlo Dudog's injury pattern corresponded to that of Beuthe in Erfurt. When using batons, there is a potentially fatal danger, particularly on the top of the head and temples; otherwise injuries caused by batons are not life-threatening as such. However, there is definitely a risk of a concussion, which could lead to loss of consciousness. The injured person could fall unresponsive to the ground and sustain serious injuries. This was obviously not the case in Erfurt or Budapest. It is true that the injured Baran was hit on the temple, Dudog was hit with massive blunt force to the head and Toth was hit with a baton on the top and back of the head, and Fischer and Brinkmann were also hit in the head, which was potentially life-threatening, but in no case did it occur.

It remained unclear whether Toth suffered broken ribs or a bruise and whether Dudog and Fabian were unconscious. In order to clarify this, Luca's lawyer Busl requested that the protocol of the National Emergency Service regarding Laszlo Dudog and the medical report from the Budapest accident center be read out in the main hearing and that the police officers who were first at the crime scene be called as witnesses. Clara's lawyer Kostzik also requested that the minutes of the National Emergency Service and the medical reports regarding Fabian be read out. In particular, the evidence would refute witness Fabian's statements that Dudog was unconscious.

Various motions, declarations and resolutions followed. First, the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office requested that the defense's request to summon lawyer Oliver Niessing be dismissed. The witness should show his adidas SAMBA sneakers at the trial in order to testify that the wear on the sole was caused by normal use, as seems to be usual with the sports shoe. The federal prosecutor replied that this was of no importance for the taking of evidence. However, this is by no means irrelevant, after all, the accusation against Emmi in the Beuthe case is based not least on the GBA's absurd claim that the abrasion on the SAMBA shoe was an indication that can only be assigned to it.

The Senate rejected Moritz's defense's request to obtain information from the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office on contacts between German authorities and authorities in the USA and Hungary and to carry out further investigations into the possible transfer of information about the investigation against the accused, as well as the request for information about possible wiretapping operations by foreign authorities and about the US authorities' level of knowledge about the proceedings in Düsseldorf. The Senate's justification that there is no evidence that German authorities have passed on information about the state security proceedings in Düsseldorf to US agencies is, to say the least, naive, after all, the secret services of NATO countries regularly exchange information about internal and external "threats" in committees created for this purpose such as the Civilian Intelligence Committee (CIC) and in civilian networks.

The Senate finally suggested that the investigations against Emmi for the misuse of identification documents on June 13, 2022, the fraud on June 28, 2022 and the forgery of documents on December 1, 2022 and January 18, 2023 should be excluded from prosecution in accordance with 154a paragraph 1, as well as the attempted grievous bodily harm to the detriment of 6 passers-by in Budapest.

The Senate also decided not to summon the witness Liptak because otherwise a request for legal assistance would have to be initiated and asked the defense and the GBA to comment on this. The Senate also suggested that the witness Fischer should not be examined and instead the transcript of the witness's statement should be read out at the main hearing, provided that the GBA and the defense agreed to this.

At the end, lawyer Erkan Zünbül von Moritz made a statement for the record and pointed out the significant extrajudicial disadvantages that have already occurred and which the accused are exposed to as a result of media reporting, especially through the naming of real names in the BILD newspaper. The name of his mandates is linked to terms such as “thug squads”, “murder weapons” and “assassinations”. This gives the impression that his guilt is already certain. That means unacceptable prejudice and stigmatization, said Zünbül. In particular, the articles “The Luggage of the Hammer Gang” and “The New Faces of the Hammer Gang” from BILD violated general personal rights. This is clearly illegal. A later counter statement cannot make up for this. The consequences for the defendants and family members were significant; the reporting had an impact on their personal environment.

Zünbül also pointed out that the names of the accused were published by right-wing media such as Junge Freiheit. He therefore requested that an article from Junge Freiheit with the headline "Attacks in Budapest. Hungary's police are looking for these suspected Antifa thugs" be read out in the main hearing and that the photos contained therein be introduced into the proceedings. The distribution by media from the right-wing environment also creates the risk of intimidation attempts, threats, stalking, physical attacks, digital attacks and invasions of privacy. These dangers not only affect the defendants, but also relatives and their personal environment. The stigmatization in public represents an additional sanction even before a conviction. These disadvantages affect the defendant and have a significant impact on his personal safety, social relationships and professional future.

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