NSU trial at risk?

Zschäpe on Tuesday asked for the dismissal of Wolfgang Heer, one of three court-appointed public defenders assigned to her case when the trial started in 2013.

On Monday, all three of Zschäpe's initial defense counsels, comprising Heer (pictured above, right) as well as Wolfgang Stahl and Anja Sturm, had themselves asked to be withdrawn, but the court turned down their application to quit.

Presiding judge Manfred Götzl argued they had not provided sufficient grounds.

Risk of mistrial?

A departure of all three, who have reportedly had rows over strategy with Zschäpe, could bring about a mistrial. Several weeks ago, the court appointed a fourth lawyer, Mathias Grasel (pictured above, left), as an extra defense counsel.

The German news agency DPA said Zschäpe began Tuesday's proceedings - the 220th trial day - by submitting a handwritten request for Heer's dismissal. The court gave the defense counsel until Wednesday to reply.

Zschäpe is the surviving member of an alleged killer trio called the National Socialist Underground (NSU), which prosecutors blame for 10 murders between 2000 and 2007.

The victims were all residents in Germany - eight men of Turkish origin, a Greek migrant, and a German policewoman.

The gang's two male members, Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt, died in 2011 in an apparent murder-suicide while hiding in a camper van after a bank robbery.

Resulting publicity led to deeply embarrassing questions for authorities about intelligence flaws and why police had initially blamed the 10 murders on migrant gangs.

Giving testimony on Tuesday, a woman detective of the national criminal investigative police, the BKA, told the court that a bizarre DVD in which the NSU sketched the murders in comic style was probably produced on the computer of another trial defendant, identified as Andre E.. He is accused of complicity at the Munich trial.

DVD copies were found in the camper in the city of Eisenach and a burnt-out hideaway apartment. Further copies were presumably also mailed to other addresses by Zschäpe, the detective told the court.

Second federal inquiry into NSU?

On Tuesday, the newspaper "Frankfurter Rundschau" (FR) said the Bundestag was contemplating launching a second federal parliamentary inquiry into the case and its ramifications.

The FR quoted Eva Högl, a Social Democrat and leading figure in the previous inquiry, as saying that the "probability was definitely large that there will be a second committee of inquiry."

Högl said that inquiries in regional parliaments, including the southwestern state of Baden Württemberg and the eastern state of Thuringia, had also proven inconclusive. Questions remained, she said, over the murder of Internet café proprietor Halit Yozgat in 2006, and policewoman Michèle Kiesewetter in 2007.

Also murky were the circumstances of Böhnhardt and Mundlos' deaths and how extensive the NSU network had been and even its links abroad, Högl said.

The FR said Clemens Binninger, another member of the previous federal committee of inquiry and a conservative among Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, also believed a second inquiry to be likely.

Intelligence agency knew in 2003?

Late last week, the weekly newspaper "Der Freitag" (The Friday) said the domestic intelligence agency in Baden Württemberg state had probably heard about the NSU and even Mundlos, in 2003 - long before the cell's action became public in 2011.

"Freitag" said an agency informant, identified as Torsten O., had in 2003 passed on details about the NSU to an intelligence agency investigator, identified as Günter S., who subsequently went into retirement.

Torsten O., who is serving a jail term on unrelated charges, had recently withdrawn a denial he delivered to that state's regional inquiry last March, on the grounds that authorities had put him under pressure, "Der Freitag" reported.

ipj/msh (dpa, AFP)