Dusseldorf - At a trial in Germany of four men for a
terrorist bomb plot, a judge is trying to coax the men to confess and
expose the Islamist kingpins seeking the downfall of the West.
German police arrested the plotters in September 2007 after they
bought chemicals, allegedly to blow up US bases on behalf of the
Islamic Jihad Union (IJU), a shadowy group said to be as dangerous as
al-Qaeda.
But all four defendants refuse to talk to police or to answer
questions by presiding judge Ottmar Breidling.
The trial, which began seven weeks ago in Dusseldorf and may last
into next year, is one of Germany's biggest ever terrorism cases.
Police have 420 ring-binders of evidence, which, day after day,
they are gradually producing against the four. In the face of so much
data, not even the defence attorneys can maintain that the four
defendants in the bulletproof-glass-enclosed dock are lily-white
innocents.
After 14 hearings, there are some signs that judge Breidling's
insistent appeals to the accused to own up may have some effect.
So far, all four have remained stonily silent about the evidence,
but it could be that this is about to change.
The first sign was a written note intercepted by jail warders in
mid-May. The note from one defendant to another indicated that the
men had been actively debating whether it could be to their advantage
to offer an admission and if so at what point in time.
In the court corridors, the defence attorneys have denied an
admission is likely.
'Whoever confesses here would spend the next year in the witness
box,' said one attorney, adding that if the accused then ended up
somehow contradicting himself, he would come out looking guiltier.
The detail-obsessed Breidling himself, not the lawyers, would
conduct the questioning in line with German courtroom procedure.
Moreover, experienced trial lawyers said it would not be enough
for Breidling if they simply admitted what the police can already
prove: the judge will want to know who put them up to the attack and
supplied the funding and in what other nations IJU is active.
Key allegations against the men - the purchase of hundreds of
kilograms of chemicals, the discussion of how to make car bombs, the
gathering at a holiday hideaway in the central German hills to make
the bombs and the discussion of targets - are backed by police files.
The police used listening devices to follow the plot and kept
detailed notes of their entire surveillance of Fritz Gelowicz, Daniel
Schneider and Adem Yilmaz. The first two are ethnic Germans who
converted to Islam while Yilmaz is of Turkish descent.
Prosecutors are mainly hoping to coax an admission from a fourth
man who was not part of the detailed discussions among the trio.
Atilla Selek, a German national of Turkish descent, is accused
only of obtaining detonators and planning to assist the trio's
getaway, not of making actual bombs, as his attorney, Axel Nagler,
puts it.
Conceivably, Selek could gain remission of sentence by turning
state's evidence, especially if he were the first to crack.
Obviously, his co-defendants would feel betrayed if he turned against
them.
Selek's attorney argues that his client bears less guilt anyway
because most of the detonators were faulty and would not have worked,
which he says implies that intelligence services may have ensured the
trio obtained duds.
That would be a grounds for a lesser sentence. Asked if his client
might offer a confession, he responded to the German Press Agency
dpa: 'Maybe.'
A small gesture recently suggests the judge may be thinking the
same thing.
The defendants stood up and shouted at one point, prompting guards
to clamp handcuffs on all four accused. But shortly after Breidling
instructed guards to take the cuffs of Selek. That could indicate the
judge is treating Selek gently in the hope he will decide to testify.
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