Judge appeals for confession from terrorism suspects (News Feature)

By Frank Christiansen Jun 9, 2009, 2:07 GMT

Dusseldorf - At a trial in Germany of four men for a terrorist bomb plot, a judge is trying to coax the men to confess and expose the Islamist kingpins seeking the downfall of the West.

German police arrested the plotters in September 2007 after they bought chemicals, allegedly to blow up US bases on behalf of the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU), a shadowy group said to be as dangerous as al-Qaeda.

But all four defendants refuse to talk to police or to answer questions by presiding judge Ottmar Breidling.

The trial, which began seven weeks ago in Dusseldorf and may last into next year, is one of Germany's biggest ever terrorism cases.

Police have 420 ring-binders of evidence, which, day after day, they are gradually producing against the four. In the face of so much data, not even the defence attorneys can maintain that the four defendants in the bulletproof-glass-enclosed dock are lily-white innocents.

After 14 hearings, there are some signs that judge Breidling's insistent appeals to the accused to own up may have some effect.

So far, all four have remained stonily silent about the evidence, but it could be that this is about to change.

The first sign was a written note intercepted by jail warders in mid-May. The note from one defendant to another indicated that the men had been actively debating whether it could be to their advantage to offer an admission and if so at what point in time.

In the court corridors, the defence attorneys have denied an admission is likely.

'Whoever confesses here would spend the next year in the witness box,' said one attorney, adding that if the accused then ended up somehow contradicting himself, he would come out looking guiltier.

The detail-obsessed Breidling himself, not the lawyers, would conduct the questioning in line with German courtroom procedure.

Moreover, experienced trial lawyers said it would not be enough for Breidling if they simply admitted what the police can already prove: the judge will want to know who put them up to the attack and supplied the funding and in what other nations IJU is active.

Key allegations against the men - the purchase of hundreds of kilograms of chemicals, the discussion of how to make car bombs, the gathering at a holiday hideaway in the central German hills to make the bombs and the discussion of targets - are backed by police files.

The police used listening devices to follow the plot and kept detailed notes of their entire surveillance of Fritz Gelowicz, Daniel Schneider and Adem Yilmaz. The first two are ethnic Germans who converted to Islam while Yilmaz is of Turkish descent.

Prosecutors are mainly hoping to coax an admission from a fourth man who was not part of the detailed discussions among the trio.

Atilla Selek, a German national of Turkish descent, is accused only of obtaining detonators and planning to assist the trio's getaway, not of making actual bombs, as his attorney, Axel Nagler, puts it.

Conceivably, Selek could gain remission of sentence by turning state's evidence, especially if he were the first to crack. Obviously, his co-defendants would feel betrayed if he turned against them.

Selek's attorney argues that his client bears less guilt anyway because most of the detonators were faulty and would not have worked, which he says implies that intelligence services may have ensured the trio obtained duds.

That would be a grounds for a lesser sentence. Asked if his client might offer a confession, he responded to the German Press Agency dpa: 'Maybe.'

A small gesture recently suggests the judge may be thinking the same thing.

The defendants stood up and shouted at one point, prompting guards to clamp handcuffs on all four accused. But shortly after Breidling instructed guards to take the cuffs of Selek. That could indicate the judge is treating Selek gently in the hope he will decide to testify.