Court Report Day 101 – 19 September 2012

The closing address of the second lawyer for one of the under-age defendants which was started at the last date, was continued. The lawyer argued that his client had acted out of pure necessity to survive. He had been seriously under-weight when he arrived in Hamburg. A prison sentence would be reflective of colonial justice which only served the interests of the ship owners.

Next was the defence for the accused who had been named as the alleged leader by the 'crown witness'. They followed up on the previous address by accusing the court of having this trial in order to protect the shipping routes for German merchants. They also raised the question of what purpose a sentence was supposed to serve. They pointed to a fracture in the trial, which according to them had occurred after the Norwegian expert witness Hansen had been heard. From then on the court had refused to approve any witnesses for the defence and had only seemed to be interested in closing the case. The court's refusal to hear a witness from Somalia had been justified with excuses such as that the time frame for a visa application had been unclear or that it was not known whether the witness had been vaccinated.

Court Report Day 96 – 30 August 2012

As expected, the bail applications from the last hearing were declined. In one case, the defence appealed the decision, but it was upheld.

Then followed an almost enthusiastic report from the representative of the youth court aid about the three under-age defendants who have been living in a youth facility since April. According to everyone involved, their “politeness, reliability and eagerness to learn are exemplary”. They were also looking after each other and getting on well with everyone. They were, however, deeply worried about their families in Somalia.

Then one of the defence lawyers announced that – unbeknownst to the prosecution or the court – his client had been visited by two police officers and a translator. The defendant had refused to talk to them, so they had left. The prison's visitor book showed no entries, therefore the lawyer applied to ascertain the names of the officers. This was declined by the judge.

Another application to hear the uncle of the “crown witness” who supposedly could confirm or deny some of his statements will be decided by the next hearing.

Next date: Wednesday, 5 September, 9 am

Court Report Day 94 – The Prosecutor's Apprentice

Court Report, 12 July 2012.

Today, a further witness from the German federal police was heard. L. works at Frankfurt airport and he participated in the conversation with the Indian journalist R., who had interviewed the crew of the dhow Hudhud. The officer's statement was supposed to resolve discrepancies between R's recollection of the conversation and the notes taken by the other officer, B.

L. stated that he was asked by B. to accompany him to the TV station, but that he had no idea what it was about. His area of responsibilities were kidnappings. Why he - 'the driver', as he was called by one lawyer - ended up signing the file notes remained a mystery.

Court Report Day 88 - 23.5.12

Court Report Day 88 – 23 May 2012

Today, the Indian journalist working for german television ARD, who was announced yesterday, appeared and gave evidence. He had been called in at short notice, when the German federal police had told the court last week that he had been in Salaya and had interviewed two of the crew from the dhow Hudhud.

He said the reason why the crew didn't want to appear in court themselves was not because they were afraid of coming to Germany but because they wanted to leave these events behind. The judge thanked the journalist for taking the unusual step of sharing his research with the court.

First, the court wanted to be sure that they were talking about the same people, so two photos were shown to identify the crew members.

When the judge asked, the journalist mentioned two names of people who were behind the attack on the Taipan. However, when asked about the name of the defendant, whose relatives had been involved, he said that he had been given two more names in the last couple of days and that he didn't want to falsely accuse anyone. Should the judge ask again in a few days, it was likely that different names would come up.

While in India, the journalist had read in Times of India about the two crew members being in Salaya, so he decided to interview them. But he said, he wasn't alone with the two, at times there had been up to 40 other people in the room, who had just dropped in (“there is not much happening in Salaya”). He had about half an hour of raw video footage, which will be shown at the next court hearing. When asked if the interviewees knew that they were being filmed and that the material was going to be published, he said he assumed so. He repeatedly described them as 'simple people', who didn't tell a lot of details.

The crew had been upset about being held captive by other Muslims. True Muslims wouldn't do that to each other. They had been threatened and had  to sleep all  in one room, but had not been harmed physically. They had been told that they would be freed once the Somali had successfully captured a ship. The capturing of the Taipan obviously failed, so they had to wait until another ship had been hijacked and after that they were released. In the meantime they had been fishing. The judge seemed a little confused at this because the Hudhud had been described as a coal carrier, but the journalist told him that it wasn't unusual to also trade in fish.

According to the two crew members, the Somali had spent a lot of time on the phone, talking to their families, who kept asking when they would return, and about the ransom money. To us, this raises the question of how the Indian crew would know the content of the phone calls, unless they spoke Somali, which had never been mentioned before. However, no one in the court room asked about it.

The journalist emphasized that he himself had never initiated contact with the FBI or the German police, instead they had contacted him several times, especially after a colleague of his had been kidnapped in Somalia in January.

He stated that apparently some of the conversations he had had with the German police had not been recorded correctly and this way some incorrect information had been reported in the German media recently.

The only question asked by the defence was whether he had given the name of the 'crown witness' to the German police. He was indignant and vehemently denied this.

The hearing was then adjourned because one of the defendants was suffering from severe headache and had to see a doctor. The next planned trial date on 25. May has been cancelled due to the unavailability of the journalist. The next date will be the 4^th of June, where the video footage of the interviews will be shown.

Court Report 16 April 2012 - Interesting developments

The trial is becoming more and more unpredictable. During the last hearing on 16 April, several new situations developed.

First, the judge announced that the defendant who had made an extensive admission on 29 February (defendant 'X') had made another statement to the prosecutor – outside of a public hearing and bypassing the judge. This seems to rumours that have been going around, that the defendant's earlier admission was made in 'co-operation' with the prosecutor. One newspaper today called the defendant the 'crown witness'.

Then a defence lawyer made an application to hear the Dutch navy officer De Wind again. He had interrogated the defendant 'X' on the Dutch frigate Tromp, as well as in Holland. De Wind had declined to reveal the content of the defendant's statements, claiming it was a military secret. 'X'  had stated later that what he was telling the court, he had already told the Dutch navy. De Wind should now be asked to confirm or deny that 'X' had in fact made the same statements to De Wind. This would no longer be subject to military secrecy because the statements had now been made in a public court. If De Wind denies this, then the defendant's credibility is in question.

After that another defence lawyer repeated his application to hear the Indian crew of the dhow Hudhud. The defence had sent someone to India to track down the witnesses. They had spoken to the head of the Vessel Owners Association in the harbour where the Hudhud was registered. There were written records of statements made by the crew to the Owners Association. There were also the names, photos and full addresses of two crew members who were willing to be interviewed in either the German embassy in New Delhi or the consulate in Mumbai. The lawyer told the court that the crew could confirm that his client had been forced at gun point to participate in the attack on the Taipan.

When court resumed after a two hour break, the case took yet another turn, when one of the defendants who had been indicted by 'X' made a statement. He told the court that 'X' had given the court a false name, that he was from a different tribe than what he had claimed and that in fact he had led the attack on the Taipan, which had been organized by his brother, who lived in London.

Then a third defence lawyer made an application to hear the expert witness Stig Hansen from Norway again. Hansen had been heard at the beginning of the trial as an expert on Somalia. Hansen could confirm – by using his network and contacts in Somalia – that 'X' had made false statements regarding his name, his tribal association and his family in Somalia, that he had worked for an organisation which was set up up to protect ships against piracy but later switched sides, that he had been arrested by the French navy in 2008 and was known as a pirate and that during the attack on the Taipan he had played the role which he alleged others had. 

The court will have to consider the three new applications for witnesses. The next planned hearing on Wednesday, 18 April has been cancelled. Therefore the next hearing will be on Tuesday, 24 April.

Day 77 of the Trial

The trial has been separated today into two parts: part one consists of the 3 under-age defendants and 2 of the adults, the other part consists of the remaing 5 adults. The split was due to two factors. One was information received from the German police in India, who had confirmed that the full addresses of the crew of the dhow HudHud, which was allegedly used as the mothership, were known. This means that they can be called as witnesses. This has been applied for (repeatedly) by the lawyer of the oldest defendant. The other factor deciding the severance was a ruling by a higher court that the youngest of the accused would have to be released from custody by the end of March. 

For the judge there were two opposing needs: the need to finalize the trial for the under-age defendants by the end of March and the need for the Indian witnesses to be heard. Therefore the judge decided to reward two of the adult defendants, who had given full admissions early on in the trial, by assigning them to the group that will finish early. The trial for the remaining five will continue with the examination of the witnesses. We suspect that the reason why the four adults, who hadn't applied to have the Indian witneses heard have been grouped together with the one other  defendant is that the judge is expecting that the Inidan witnesses may contradict the stories of these four.  We say: FREEDOM to all!

When all seemed to have been settled, the lawyer of the youngest accused stated that his client had grown by 4 cm while in prison. This is significant because at the beginning of the trial, his 'official' age had been determined by dubious methods of the forensic institute of the Hamburg University Hospital, and was found to be 'fully grown'. Because fully grown people don't normally just grow by 4 cm, this indicates that the process of age assessment may have been flawed. This could have ramifications on the trial, because the court had operated on the assumption of the 'official' age of the defendant.  But maybe the judge will find a way to declare his body to have grown illegally and everything will be in order.

Postscript to day 75

During the last trial day, the judge reported about an email from the German Federal Criminal Police (BKA), stating that the investigations to track down potential witnesses for the trial had been taken over by the local Indian police.

What we forgot to mention is that the judge used the term 'regrettably' in this context. Obviously the judge finds it natural that the German police should conduct their own investigations in other countries, and considers it an insult if the authorities of that country dare to interfere with that. The same sentiment had been shown before by a German police witness who inspected the Taipan in Dubai – he was complaining that his team hadn't been allowed to board the ship alone and had always been accompanied by the Dubai police.

Court refuses to hear witness from Somalia for "ethical" reasons

It's not only about German justice, said a lawyer to the judge, it is also about German morals. "What you call 'bribery' as a reason not to invite an important witness to court, is called bakshish in other countries".
All witnesses from Somalia, that have been named by the lawyers have been refused by the court, for different reasons: Somalia has no goverment, no registration system so people don't have passports or visas. Therefore no one from Somali will be considered as witnesses by the court because they are not registered! And a German court cannot send a summons to someone who isn't registered by their government.
Does that mean that generally people from countries where there is war and no goverment are not suitable as witnesses in a German court?
Is a person's existence depending on their registration or their passport?
no one is illegal!