Judgment in the Lina E. case: Struggling for the sovereignty of interpretation

The verdict against Lina E. and three other defendants is expected in Dresden. They are said to have founded a criminal organization and attacked neo-Nazis. After the end of the left-wing extremism trial, protests are expected.

At the end, the defendant speaks again. For a long time she thought about what to say. She will not lose words about the procedure or even the deeds. “I would like to thank you for all the support I have received over the past two and a half years,” the 28-year-old explains in a resolute voice and thanks her family, friends and all supporters.

It is the preliminary culmination of a procedure that has been conducted since September 2021 before the state security senate of the Dresden Higher Regional Court. Lina E. and three men are accused of founding a left-wing extremist criminal organization. Between 2018 and 2020, she is said to have carried out several attacks on right-wing extremists and neo-Nazis in Saxony and Thuringia.

Since she was handcuffed to Karlsruhe in November 2020 and brought before the investigating judge at the Federal Court of Justice, Lina E. has become a symbol of the left-wing scene. Lina E. was taken into custody and outside the fight over how the events should be interpreted – fueled by the fact that shortly after the arrest, authorities were quoted as saying that the activities of the alleged group were “on the threshold to terrorism”.

Destroyed hopes of short process

The proceedings before the OLG Dresden began with a great deal of media attention. The Senate initially planned to end the procedure by Christmas 2021. But this notion had to be quickly dismissed. Hours of questioning about DNA reports or video recordings could not help paint a clear picture. Many of the chains of evidence consisted solely of circumstantial evidence.

Likewise, when the raid victims from the right-wing extremist scene were summoned, cross-examinations that sometimes lasted for hours developed through the defense of the accused. The court interrogations of the Eisenach right-wing extremist Leon R.

The night-time attack on him in December 2019 got the investigations against the accused rolling, because at the end of that night Lina E. and her co-defendant Lennart A. were in police custody after an unsuccessful attempt to escape.

Problematic testimony

A few weeks earlier, R’s “Bull’s Eye” pub was attacked by a group of hooded people with batons and pepper spray. At the time, he and other witnesses to what happened said they recognized an attacker who R. later identified as the woman who attacked him.

R. was originally the main prosecution witness for the federal prosecutor. His statements were included in her indictment. In the course of the proceedings, however, they could not be substantiated beyond doubt. Whether there was actually a woman involved in the attack on the “Bull’s Eye” and whether R. recognized her cannot be said by observers in the court after the evidence was taken.

A crime scene reconstruction could not support the testimony of another witness to have seen a woman run out of the “Bull’s Eye”. The federal prosecutor’s office is now investigating Leon R. and others for forming a right-wing extremist, criminal and terrorist organization.

doubt sth investigative work

In the spring of 2022, the defense of a Berlin defendant provided an alibi for their client. The basis for the allegation against him was a conversation intercepted by investigators, which was apparently misinterpreted.

It was the first time that fundamental doubts about the error-free work of the federal prosecutor’s office arose during the proceedings. In February 2023, the defense of the fourth defendant, Jannis R., also provided an alibi for one of the alleged acts. In this case, too, the wrong interpretation of a tapped conversation was the basis for the suspicion.

prosecution witness from their own ranks

By the summer of 2022, the negotiation had lost much of its momentum. That only changed when the prosecution presented Johannes D., a witness from the suspects’ closest circle of acquaintances. D. testified before the OLG Dresden for a total of twelve days and heavily incriminated Lina E..

According to his statement, she was significantly involved in the planning and implementation of raids. D. also testified about so-called “scenario” training sessions, in which the members of the group are said to have practiced violent attacks on their political opponents.

Process based on circumstantial evidence

Also D’s statements are not free of doubts. For the State Protection Senate, however, his testimony is of considerable importance, especially for the joint training sessions, as the presiding judge Schlueter-Staats emphasized several times in the proceedings.

In most cases, this leaves clues that the court must interpret. The federal prosecutor’s office also sees “not one overwhelming piece of evidence”. For them, “the overall view” of the events is more decisive for considering the allegations against the four defendants as largely confirmed.

The federal prosecutor’s office is demanding eight years in prison for Lina E., and several years in prison for the other defendants. The defense, on the other hand, mostly sees the innocence of their clients confirmed and demands acquittal in most cases.

riots announced

In any case, the verdict will probably have consequences. Autonomous groups have called for a “Day X” demonstration in Leipzig on Saturday after the verdict. The police are arming themselves for riots, the arrival of violent people from all over Europe and their threat of causing “one million euros in property damage for every year sentenced”.

It remains to be seen whether this will happen due to differentiated voices from the scene. A discussion about the pros, cons and manifestations of political violence has been going on there for a long time, even if not necessarily in public. Quite a few in the scene describe the measures taken by the authorities as “excessively exaggerated” “in view of the high number of right-wing extremist acts of violence”.

Further radicalization feared

The Federal Criminal Police Office and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution assume that people close to the accused, some of whom are also suspects in violent attacks in Budapest, could go into hiding and become further radicalized – up to the “threshold to terrorism” that has been feared for several years.

Last week, the police in Jena searched the home of a man. There is currently no connection to the Dresden proceedings. The Dresden Public Prosecutor’s Office suspects him and another man of forming a criminal organization that is also said to have carried out attacks on right-wing extremists.