It was 3.30am on September 8th last year when the break-in began in the southwestern German city of Ulm.<\/p>\n
A black-clad group rushed towards the premises housing the German subsidiary of Israel\u2019s<\/a> largest arms company, Elbit. They smashed the front door, set off fireworks and on the facade sprayed slogans reading \u201cshut Elbit down\u201d and \u201cchild murderers\u201d.<\/p>\n As that group dispersed, a second group broke a side window and climbed into the premises, destroying office and technical equipment, damaging a bathroom and detonating smoke bombs.<\/p>\n The group locked themselves in and posted a video of their attack online, prosecutors say, before waiting for police to show up.<\/p>\n Going on trial on Monday in Stuttgart are five people detained at the scene, citizens of Germany<\/a>, Spain<\/a>, the UK<\/a> and Ireland, including 32-year-old Dubliner Daniel Tatlow-Devally.<\/p>\n [\u00a0Irish citizen held in Germany concerned over psychological consequences of pretrial detention<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n All have been charged with trespassing, causing an estimated \u20ac1 million in property damage, membership of a criminal organisation and use of symbols linked to Hamas<\/a>, classified in Germany as a terrorist group. After almost eight months in pretrial detention, including 23-hour solitary confinement, the five could face up to five years in prison if convicted.<\/p>\n Their 11-strong defence team is to argue their clients are \u201chuman rights defenders\u201d whose break-in was an interventionist protest in defence of Gazan Palestinians.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will show in court that this was an act of civil disobedience directed exclusively at property in order to prevent further war crimes,\u201d Benjamin D\u00fcsberg, a lead defence lawyer, said. The defence hopes to shift focus in the trial towards Germany\u2019s support of Israel and Elbit\u2019s manufacture in Germany of drone components, target acquisition systems and combat software.<\/p>\n Defence lawyers said the five were \u201cbeing made an example of through disproportionate, punitive detention\u201d before the trial at Stuttgart\u2019s Stammheim high-security court complex. This location is linked in German minds to 1970s trials against the far-left Red Army Faction, also known as the Baader\u2013Meinhof Gang.<\/p>\n Mimi Tatlow-Golden, Daniel\u2019s mother, feared the prosecution was preparing a \u201cshow trial in the Stammheim high-security setting as if they [the defendants] were dangerous offenders\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I am hopeful that if the court views the evidence dispassionately,\u201d she said, \u201cit will have to draw a different conclusion.\u201d<\/p>\n Her son has no prior convictions, studied philosophy in Trinity College Dublin<\/a> and has lived in Berlin for the last seven years, studying philosophy and neuroscience and then working in the fields of artificial intelligence (AI), behavioural psychology and ethics.<\/p>\n The Stuttgart trial is one of the highest profile court cases related to protest over Israel\u2019s military response in Gaza<\/a> to the October 7th, 2023, Hamas-led attacks.<\/p>\n In the two-and-a-half years since, Germany has found itself on two uneasy fault lines. The shadow of the Holocaust has shaped modern Germany\u2019s sense of obligation to defend Israel\u2019s existence, though initial political and public support is cooling in response to Israel Defence Forces<\/a> (IDF) military tactics in Gaza and Lebanon<\/a>.<\/p>\n A second fault line running is that Berlin is home to the largest Palestinian population outside the Middle East. This has made the German capital a stage for heated street protests that often draw support of a group of local Irish residents called Irish Bloc Berlin.<\/p>\n Many of these protests have descended into violence, with protesters and police accusing the other of provocative and violent behaviour.<\/p>\n An investigation is ongoing into a police officer assault last year of Berlin-based Irish citizen Kitty O\u2019Brien<\/a>, clips of which went viral online. On Thursday another Irish activist is to go on trial over a demonstration at a separate Berlin university that turned violent.<\/p>\n Since 2022, official statistics show charges filed in 4,926 cases with a Middle East link, about 60 per cent of which are linked to demonstrations.<\/p>\n A report last year by the Amsterdam-based Transnational Institute argued that Germany has \u201cbecome a laboratory for the criminalisation of solidarity with Palestine\u201d, targeting Palestinians and their supporters \u201cto test a broader transformation towards authoritarianism\u201d.<\/p>\n The federal prosecutor rejects such claims and says it will prove in the case that the five were members of \u201cPalestine Action Germany\u201d, a group with the aim of \u201ccarrying out substantial crimes\u201d.<\/p>\n In advance of the trial, Tatlow-Devally\u2019s family has protested against the refusal of bail, the short and supervised visits and limited access to letters and reading material.<\/p>\n Ulm prison director Jennifer Rietschler said these conditions, including 23-hour lock-up, \u201capply equally to all inmates and are observed strictly\u201d.<\/p>\n A major complaint centred on family meetings being held in a secure room with a glass divider, preventing any physical contact. This was applied \u201conly temporarily\u201d, Rietschler said, on foot of a court order \u201cmandating that visits take place through a partition, which means that visitors and inmates must be separated by a barrier that prevents the exchange of documents and other items\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIt subsequently came to light that an error had occurred when the court order was transmitted to the prison and this was then corrected immediately,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n A court spokesman confirmed that the glass panel separation was a mistake, that it \u201cwas noticed by the court\u201d and corrected.<\/p>\n Mimi Tatlow-Golden said action came only after they and Irish TDs contacted the German ambassador in Ireland. This saw their concerns followed up via the German foreign ministry, the prosecutor and the prison.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was five months until the mistake was corrected,\u201d she said, \u201cwhich is not \u2018temporary\u2019 if you are locked up 23 hours a day.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked why a month elapsed before Tatlow-Devally was allowed family contact, Rietschler said all pretrial detention visits were decided by the state prosecutor and courts.<\/p>\n A Stuttgart court spokesman said no visit applications filed with it had been rejected and there were no limits on individual lawyer visits.<\/p>\n Meanwhile applications to unite the five defendants with their legal team before Monday\u2019s trial, the spokesman said, had been rejected by two courts.<\/p>\n Asked about the refusal of bail, the court spokesman said two courts had each concluded that a flight risk existed.<\/p>\n \u201cThe relevant orders are part of the case file, but have not been made public,\u201d the spokesman said.<\/p>\n The case has attracted considerable attention in activist circles and the German media. For nearly eight months, support groups have held solidarity gatherings \u2013 including letter-writing evenings \u2013 and regular marches in Berlin<\/a> and in Ulm.<\/p>\n The latter prompted the pro-Israel Bild newspaper to describe the protesters as the \u201cawful five\u201d. A Bild headline on an Ulm solidarity gathering read: \u201cIsrael haters demand release of criminals\u201d.<\/p>\n Drawn into the debate over Monday\u2019s court case is Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories.<\/p>\n The Italian lawyer has been a polarising figure since October 7, 2023, with some denouncing her criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic while others have praised her for branding Israel\u2019s treatment of the Palestinian people as genocide.<\/p>\n At a public talk last month in Berlin, Albanese said Germany had a good track record pursuing war crimes and torture claims in international courts, \u201cbut when it comes to Palestine, this is really like a wall that is unbreakable\u201d.<\/p>\n