Day 11 – 17 January 2011
First, the second officer of the Taipan is giving more evidence. Some photos are shown on whoich he claims to see a person pointing a bazooka at the ship.
Then there is the bail application of the defence for the three youngest defendants. If bail is granted, there is the possibility for them to be housed in a council youth housing facility. Counsel Getzmann points out that they are in a catch-22 situation: in order for the bail application to be granted, they have to prove that the housing facility accepts them, which is only possible if they are not in prison. The application will be decided outside of the main hearings.
Next up is an employee from the Federal Office for Migration. His responsibility is to verify the authenticity of the documents the defendants have provided. He had never seen any Somali documents before. The usual physical examination of the documents was not possible because they were only copies. There are very few reference documents available for Somalia. So he searched the internet without success and then turned to the European Country of Origin Information Network. With the exception of Italy, EU countries generally don't accept the validity of Somali documents.
Then more reports regarding the age of the defendants are read out. This time the wisdom teeth are counted. I am looking around the court room and wonder how many people in the room have wisdom teeth.
