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A cross-party delegation of Irish politicians has urged Dublin to send observers to a high-security trial of pro-Palestinian activists in Germany and to raise concerns about the Irish defendant’s detention when the German chancellor visits next week.
Mairéad Farrell of Sinn Féin, a member of the seven-member delegation, said she and her colleagues had attended the hearing in Stuttgart on Wednesday of the so-called Ulm 5 activists, who are facing charges over an attack on an Israeli arms company.
Farrell and two other members of the delegation visited Daniel Tatlow-Devally, the Irish defendant being tried as part of the group, in prison. “I was quite shocked by the treatment that he is receiving. He is 23 hours a day in his cell,” Farrell said, calling on the Irish prime minister, Micheál Martin, to discuss the issue with the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, when he visits on Tuesday.
Farrell said: “His cell, from what I understand, is 5x2 metres. He doesn’t have much in his cell, so he’s stuck there for 23 hours a day. He only has an hour of visitation per month, which is obviously incredibly short.
“It just seems that there’s very harsh conditions that seem unwarranted for the scale of the fact that these people haven’t harmed people.”
German prosecutors say Tatlow-Devally was part of a group of five activists who trespassed on to a site owned by Israel’s Elbit Systems last September in the southern city of Ulm, shouting pro-Palestinian slogans as they destroyed equipment and smashed windows. They allegedly caused about €1m (£850,000) in damage.
The activists posted videos online in which they claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was aimed at drawing attention to Germany’s support for Israel and its actions in Gaza. Germany is the second biggest supplier of arms to Israel, after the US.
The defendants have remained defiant throughout the proceedings, with Tatlow-Devally telling the court in May that the group was motivated by “urgent humanitarian concerns” and sought to “make a fuss … in the hope to at least interrupt” Elbit’s deliveries to Israel.
Last month, a British judge imposed lengthy custodial sentences on four Palestine Action activists who smashed up drones and other equipment at an Elbit Systems UK factory, after ruling that there was a “terrorist connection” to their offending.
Farrell said German authorities had not allowed the Irish delegation to discuss the case with Tatlow-Devally. “That felt, I suppose, quite unusual for us,” she said.
The politicians also found fault with the trial itself. The defendants, Farrell said, “are basically in a glass cage or behind a glass wall, unable to communicate with their lawyers in … a kind of free manner”.
She said: “One of the accused said that they felt that they couldn’t really participate fully in the trial … because of these barriers that have been put in place.”
Lawyers for the defendants, Berlin-based activists who are British, Irish, German and Spanish citizens, have repeatedly raised the issue of the glass wall with the court, saying it hinders their clients’ right to representation.
The five activists have been charged with trespassing, destruction of property and membership of a criminal organisation – Palestine Action Germany – under section 129 of the German criminal code.
That charge means authorities consider the accused a threat to society, allowing them to deny bail, even after the six-month limit of pre-trial detention had passed. If found guilty, they face up to five years in prison.
Court representatives have said the conditions of the defendants’ detention are warranted based on the severity of the charges against them.
Before the trial began in April, Stuttgart’s higher regional court ordered the continuation of pre-trial detention for all defendants based on “a risk of flight, which would not be sufficiently mitigated even by the posting of bail”.
Farrell said it was “absolutely crucial” for the Irish government to send envoys to regularly attend hearings until a verdict was delivered. “That was something that couldn’t have been clearer coming out of that trial yesterday: that there is a need for observers,” she said.
Farrell urged Martin to bring up the Ulm 5 case when Merz visits for talks focused on Dublin’s six-month presidency of the EU, which began on 1 July.
She said the Irish prime minister needed to raise concerns expressed by the defendant, his family and the delegation related to his treatment in prison and “his access in terms of legal representation as part of the trial”.
The delegation included the MPs Richard Boyd Barrett and Ruth Coppinger, both of the People Before Profit-Solidarity party, Barry Ward of Fine Gael and Duncan Smith of Labour, as well as senator Patricia Stephenson of the Social Democrats and MEP Lynn Boylan of Sinn Féin.
Farrell said the group aimed to return to Germany before the trial wrapped up, probably in January: “This isn’t the end for us. We will be keeping an eye on this trial.”
