An Irishman has been formally charged for his alleged role in an attack on a German-based facility of the Israeli arms company Elbit Systems last September.
After four months on remand, Dubliner Daniel Tatlow-Devally and four others have been charged with causing an estimated €1 million in damage to property, trespassing and using symbols linked to Hamas, which is classified in Germany as a terrorist organisation.
Mr Tatlow-Devally and the four others – who are British, German and Spanish citizens – are also facing charges of membership of a criminal organisation, namely Palestine Action Germany.
The state prosecutor accuses them of breaking into a premises of Elbit, Israel’s largest arms company, in the southwestern German city of Ulm on September 8th last year.
At around 3.30am the five, along with at least six other unidentified people, are accused of damaging the glass facade of the building using tools and red dye before entering via a side window.
Once inside, they are accused of smashing, with an intent to destroy, screens, PCs and telephones in offices, as well as sinks and toilets in a bathroom.
“In a technical laboratory of the firm, they destroyed sensitive measuring devices as well as electronic machines and smashed screens and windows,” the state prosecutor’s statement said, claiming the accused left “considerable damage to property of around €1 million”.
Lawyers for the accused said they are likely to go on trial in April. It is the latest in a series of court cases in Germany linked to the fall-out of the October 7th, 2023 Hamas-led attacks on Israel – and Israel’s military response.
The five accused have been held on remand since September after a Stuttgart court agreed with prosecutors that there was a real flight risk.
As well as the main charges, defence lawyers are likely to dispute prosecutor claims over Palestine Action Germany and Hamas.
The former is a British pro-Palestinian direct-action network, proscribed in the UK last July as a terrorist organisation. Its German sister organisation has not been classified as a criminal or terrorist organisation.
Another point of contention will be what classifies as a symbol of Hamas.
A month after the October 7th attacks, Germany’s interior ministry issued a decree outlawing the phrase, “From the the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”. This was based on its symbolic links to Hamas.
The claim has been disputed by campaigners and dismissed by several German courts. With no final ruling, however, the phrase and its Hamas links remains a point of legal dispute.
A spokesman for the state prosecutor’s office in Stuttgart said the indictment “assumes” the phrase “from the river to the sea . . .” fulfils the terms of the November 2023 decree.
He added the prosecutor “assumes” that Palestine Action Germany is an organisation “whose purpose or activity is aimed at committing serious criminal offences” – something it will aim to prove during the case.