IIn connection with violent protests against the G-20 summit in Hamburg in the summer of 2017, a trial against five defendants began at the Hanseatic city's regional court on Thursday – with a delay of more than an hour. The reason for the later start was increased security precautions and the failure of a sixth defendant to appear.
According to the public prosecutor's office, she and three other women and two men are accused of committing a serious breach of the peace and assaulting law enforcement officers. The indictment also charges them with attempted grievous bodily harm, the formation of armed groups and damage to property.
The Grand Criminal Chamber decided to separate the proceedings against the 32-year-old woman, who did not appear at the start of the trial. Even before the main hearing began, the charges against an original seventh defendant had been dealt with in the same way, as a court spokesman said.
Many supporters from the left scene present
The defendants are said to have taken part in a march of 150 to 200 summit opponents on July 7, 2017, which began at Altonaer Volkspark. Stones were thrown at police officers from the crowd of people dressed uniformly in black. Participants in the march damaged traffic signs, a bus stop, a company building and two cars. When other officers stopped the march on Rondenbarg Street in the Bahrenfeld district, they were massively attacked with at least 14 stones and four fireworks.
Two of the defendants, a 28-year-old business student and former Verdi youth leader in the North Rhine-Westphalia state district and a 34-year-old educator from Berlin, read out a joint statement on Thursday, also on behalf of the other defendants. It said that none of them were accused of an individual act, but that the mere participation in a demonstration was used in the indictment as justification for punishment. This would criminalize the protests against the G-20 summit.
According to the indictment, the accused were accomplices in the individual acts of violence that were committed in the elevator. A court spokesman said before the trial began that each of them knew about the weapons they were carrying with stones and pyrotechnics, approved of their use against police officers and objects and made their own contribution to the crime by marching in a closed formation. The joint appearance, sometimes with masks and uniformly black clothing, was intended to protect the violent perpetrators inside the elevator from being identified and intervened by the police. The public prosecutor's office therefore assumes that the march participants acted in a deliberate division of labor.
In addition to the defendants who read out the statement, a 51-year-old foreign language correspondent from Villingen-Schwenningen, a 36-year-old production mechanic from Stuttgart and a 29-year-old aspiring fitness trainer from Bonn are also accused. According to Norddeutscher Rundfunk, many supporters of the accused from the left-wing scene appeared in court on Thursday. Spectators could only enter the building via a side entrance and were subjected to strict controls beforehand. According to the Hamburg Senate, the court has scheduled a total of 26 hearing dates for the proceedings until August 16th.
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