Lawyers for Irishman Daniel Tatlow-Devally, on trial in Germany for a break-in at an Israeli arms plant last October, have demanded a new judge in a bias claim filed in Stuttgart.
After a false start two weeks ago, the trial against Tatlow-Devally and four others over the October 2025 break-in is scheduled to get under way on Monday morning.
The five defendants are charged with trespassing and causing an estimated €1 million in property damage to the German subsidiary of Israeli arms company Elbit Systems in Ulm.
In addition they are accused of membership of a criminal organisation and use of symbols linked to Hamas, classified in Germany as a terrorist organisation.
Their trial’s original opening day collapsed in disarray after judge Kathrin Eichstädt declined to hear defence motions before the charge sheet was read out in court.
Defence lawyers argue in a 22-page submission filed last Thursday that the panel lead by Eichstädt is an impediment to a fair trial.
Presenting their clients in court wearing handcuffs, the defence argues, “conveyed to an impartial observer the impression that their guilt had already been established”.
Images of the five in handcuffs were circulated on the trial’s opening day via German press agencies and social media, including Instagram accounts linked with the defendants.
Another complaint is the “stigmatising effect” the defence see in the decision to move proceedings from inner city Stuttgart to the high-security Stammheim complex.
This is detrimental to a fair trial, they say, because the Stammheim courtrooms are divided in three by security screens, with their defendants to their rear behind a glass wall.
Lawyers for the five defendants say the security measures are disproportionate as their actions were not directed at people and solely against Elbit Systems’ production facility in Ulm, an hour from Stuttgart, which is reportedly involved in production of drone components.
Parallel to the Elbit-Ulm trial on Monday is a hearing into the so-called Reuß group, members of which are accused of stockpiling weapons for a violent coup to topple the German constitutional order and install a monarch.
Mimi Tatlow-Golden, mother of Daniel Tatlow-Devally, has taken issue with the decision to hold the Elbit-Ulm case in the same complex with alleged members of an armed coup attempt.
The Elbit case is “a case of property damage only, they harmed no one, the prosecutor doesn’t even claim any harm to anyone”, she said. “They were arrested without resistance, processed peacefully and have been entirely peaceful during eight months’ pretrial detention.”
Responding to the defence complaints, the court insists that trial procedure in Baden-Württemberg requires charges to be read out before motions can be filed.
A spokesperson for the Stuttgart court said the use of handcuffs while defendants were led to their seat in court before being removed for the hearingwas “standard in our region”.
The court has rejected, too, defence complaints at being seated with their backs to their defendants, requiring communication via microphones and headsets.
A Stuttgart court spokesman said the communication system had “functioned flawlessly” during more than 100 court days to date.
“There have been no restrictions on communication between defence counsel and the defendants,” said the spokesman. “The right to a fair trial is not compromised.”
The Stuttgart trial is the third case in court involving Berlin-based Irish Palestine activists. In the last fortnight two other cases in Berlin have ended, in one case with acquittal and in the other with the dismissal of an illegal removal order.
Other cases are still looming, including an assault charge against a police officer accused of punching Berlin-based activist Kitty O’Brien.