The Government has been urged to send monitors to the trial in Germany of an Irish man and four others charged over an attack on the offices of a weapons systems supplier to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett described the case, which started on Monday in Stuttgart, as a “show trial” and said the defendants, including Dubliner Daniel Tatlow-Devally (32), had no direct access to their lawyers.
He said “completely abnormal” restrictions were being imposed.
“In any normal trial in Germany the person who is on trial, even if they are a terrorist or neo-Nazi murderer, can sit with their lawyers,” he told the Dáil.
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However, he said the accused in this case “are put in behind a high-security glass cage, essentially, so they cannot communicate properly” with their lawyers.
“They are being tried as organised criminals when they represented no physical threat to anybody but were actually acting to protest against genocide.”
The five have been charged with trespassing, causing an estimated €1 million in property damage, membership of a criminal organisation and use of symbols linked to Hamas, classified in Germany as a terrorist group.
Boyd Barrett said the defence team “are asking that the Irish Government would send monitors to look over this trial”.
He called on the Government “to make a public statement in support of Daniel, and to say the way he is being treated by the German legal system is an absolute disgrace”.
“That pressure can impact on the German government.”
The Dún Laoghaire TD described the incident in question as a “direct action protest but it was not one where anybody was physically threatened or harmed”.
“The people did not run away and they did not resist arrest. Indeed, they waited for the police to come and arrest them.”
However, he said the German authorities have “decided to try to convict them under legislation that is reserved for organised crime and are trying them now in a court that is normally reserved for terrorists and for organised criminals”.
Boyd Barrett said Tatlow-Devally has been “incarcerated for 23 hours a day, effectively in solitary confinement”.
Replying for the Government, Minister of State Frank Feighan said “consular assistance has been provided to the citizen referred to” since soon after his detention. He said a dedicated officer from the Consulate General of Ireland in Munich had been assigned to support “the citizen and their family”.
He said staff from the consulate have visited Tatlow-Devally four times, most recently on April 10th.
“We are in regular contact with the citizen and with family members,” Feighan said.
He said the Department of Foreign Affairs and its embassies “are precluded from intervening in the judicial and legal processes of another country”.
“Therefore, it would not be appropriate to comment on the ongoing legal case,” he said, adding that he would consult the Minister about sending monitors to the trial.
