{"id":400496,"date":"2026-03-24T00:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T00:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/400496\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T00:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T00:25:09","slug":"irish-citizen-held-in-germany-concerned-over-psychological-consequences-of-pretrial-detention-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/400496\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish citizen held in Germany concerned over psychological consequences of pretrial detention \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Irish citizen held on remand for six months in Germany<\/a> over an attack on an Israeli<\/a> arms company has expressed concern over the psychological consequences of their pretrial detention.<\/p>\n

Dubliner Daniel Tatlow-Devally has been in prison since last September after a break-in at the German subsidiary of Israel\u2019s largest arms company Elbit Systems.<\/p>\n

Tatlow-Devally is one of five people who were arrested at the factory in the southwestern city of Ulm on September 8th.<\/p>\n

Next month, all five go on trial in Stuttgart on charges of trespassing, causing damage to property and membership of a criminal organisation.<\/p>\n

Tatlow-Devally is being held on 23-hour solitary lockdown, allowed just 30-minute family visits every fortnight and, in letters to loved ones, is worried about the consequences of pretrial detention.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wonder about all the ways I am already used to having my freedom limited and there is honestly a part of me that is worried I will need time to get used to being free again, that it won\u2019t come back naturally,\u201d said Tatlow-Devally, who uses they-them pronouns, in a letter read out by their sister Clara at an event in Berlin.<\/p>\n

\"AnAn Elbit Systems’ staff member looks at his phone next to some of the company’s weapons at a defence event in Paris in 2022. Photograph: Emmanuel Dunand\/AFP via Getty <\/p>\n

\u201cI do my best to keep my mind as free as I can to compensate for how unfree my body is,\u201d they added. \u201cWhen I practice Greek spelling, or write, or read a book out loud to myself, I do my best to keep my mind in contact with the world in which I will live when I am free.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clara Tatlow-Devally said the German state \u201cseems to have made up its mind\u201d about her brother and the other co-defendants.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey seem to think that fair process does not apply,\u201d she told supporters at the Berlin gathering on Sunday evening.<\/p>\n

Tatlow-Devally\u2019s mother Mimi has expressed fears of \u201ca show trial to come\u201d, given the terms of her son\u2019s detention since September, in particular how a month passed before their family could reach them.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo news was transmitted to Daniel that their family was seeking to contact them,\u201d she said at a press conference on Monday in Berlin. \u201cThey thought we had disowned them but this is not the case in any way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Daniel'sDaniel’s family members, from left, Clara Tatlow-Devally, Conor\u00a0Devally and Mimi Tatlow-Devally. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw <\/p>\n

Lawyers for Tatlow-Devally and four others \u2013 who are British, German and Spanish citizens \u2013 describe their clients as human rights defenders and say their actions were justified to halt production of components and products used by the Israel Defence Forces in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Defence lawyer Nina On\u00e8r said it will be \u201ccomplex in legal and practical terms\u201d to establish the precise role of Elbit System\u2019s German subsidiary in the Gaza offensive. To date, she said, the German public prosecutor has declined defence demands to investigate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are not going to be handing out papers to us with data and, in a court of law, every aspect of what we are trying to prove legally will have to be proved factually,\u201d said On\u00e8r. \u201cI am sure we will make it work, even without the prosecutor\u2019s help.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trial preparation has been difficult, she said, as it has not been possible for all defendants to meet together in one room with their lawyers. Another complicating factor is establishing the cost of the damage caused, initially estimated at \u20ac200,000 and now claimed to be around \u20ac1 million.<\/p>\n

Defence lawyers take issue, too, with the choice of venue for next month\u2019s trial: a high-security courtroom in the Stammheim complex. This is associated historically with the 1970s trials of members of the far-left Red Army Faction and, lawyers say, chosen deliberately to imply the five defendants are \u201chighly criminal people, something we strongly oppose\u201d.<\/p>\n

Defence lawyer Matthias Schuster said: \u201cOur clients are not dangerous but should appear so to, in return, justify the strict prison conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Irish citizen held on remand for six months in Germany over an attack on an Israeli arms…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[25123,9,10,13,14,3761,6621,6,71,3857,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-400496","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-berlin","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-gaza-strip","14":"tag-germany","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-israel","17":"tag-israel-hamas-conflict","18":"tag-latest-news","19":"tag-latestnews","20":"tag-main-news","21":"tag-mainnews","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-topstories","25":"tag-world","26":"tag-world-news","27":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}