Beate Zschäpe

Beate Zschape in court Thursday with the lawyer she switched to when she insisted on telling her side, preparing to read a statement.

AFTER REMAINING SILENT SINCE HER TRIAL BEGAN IN 2013 – except for a statement read by her attorney last year in which she admitted guilt for her two friends Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt – 41-year-old Zschäpe read a short statement in court on Thursday.

She said that after the German reunification in 1990, she “identified with nationalist ideology.” But now she has changed, she said, and today: "I judge people not by their origin and political affiliation but by their behavior."

She added, “I regret my own misconduct. I condemn what Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt did to the victims."

NSU trio member Uwe Mundlos is now discovered to have worked for a company owned by an informant of the German intelligence service.

According to an article in Die Welt (The World), a team of journalists led by editor-in-chief Stefan Aust reported that two of the three alleged National-Socialist Underground members worked for a  company in Zwickau after “going underground” in 1998. From 2000 to 2002 Uwe Mundlos worked under a false name at a building demolition service company owned by “neo-Nazi” Ralf Marschner. The authors of the Die Welt report say Marschner was an informant who was delivering information about the right-wing scene to the intelligence services. Marschner is believed to have worked under the code name Primus for the BfV, Germany's domestic intelligence service. There is now speculation whether Mundlos himself was also supplying information to the BfV.

Her newest defense attorney, Mathias Grasel confirmed this today, with the request that any questions by the court be given in writing. Any answers will also be given in writing after Grasel and Zschäpe [pictured right] consult over the weekend. It is my understanding that no one can be forced to answer questions in court.

The farce of this case

A previous article by Deutche Welle summing up the case so far had some strange sentences. Here are a few:

“Throughout the two and a half years of the trial over the NSU murders […] the trial itself has produced some answers, but by no means all.” Notice that it's called “the NSU murders” but sufficient evidence for this has still not been found in 2 ½ years (actually 4 years).