The proceedings are getting more and more bizarre. The judge spent considerable time reading out 84 telephone numbers that were stored in the mobile phones which the accused had with them when they were handed over to the German authorities by the Dutch marines. Probably the first phone book that was created by a German court.
First the judge added another page to the special file 'Applications Declined'. This time it was a challenge from the defence on the grounds that it had come to light that the court had been informing the German Federal Criminal Office BKA, the Federal Police and the ship owners (who all have or had observers in the trial)of changes to court dates and times - whereas other observers were not informed. These observers were given reserved seats in the court room because the court had expected a lot of public interest. To the defence, this is shows a bias towards the prosecution. However, the judges who rule on these matters saw nothing wrong with it.
Then the judge spent hours reading out phones numbers that were extracted from mobile phones, obviously in order to create connections between the accused.
One of the accused states that he will no longer answer any questions by the judge because he has lost all confidence in the proceedings.
