A regional German court overseeing the high-profile trial of five transnational activists, dubbed the “Ulm Five,” has formally dismissed all defence applications to call specialized expert witnesses who were set to testify on links between the local Ulm operations of Israeli defence conglomerate Elbit Systems and Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. The five defendants — Daniel Tatlow-Devally, Zo Hailu, Crow Tricks, Vi Kovarbasic and Leandra Rollo, hailing from Germany, Spain, Ireland and the United Kingdom — were arrested on September 8 following an alleged break-in at Elbit’s Ulm facility, where prosecutors claim they caused extensive damage to the building’s glass facade and destroyed office hardware including computers, monitors and telecommunications equipment. The group has already spent more than 12 months in pretrial detention ahead of the current proceedings.
According to statements shared with independent news outlet Middle East Eye, the defence legal team had spent months submitting formal requests to summon expert witnesses who could corroborate that technology developed at the Ulm site contributes directly to alleged genocide in Gaza. Under German criminal procedure rules, courts are legally required to hear summoned defence witnesses unless they rule the proposed evidence inadmissible. The defence team proceeded to physically bring two qualified experts to court in mid-October to force consideration of their testimony: first, weapons technology researcher Dr Shir Hever, who was prepared to outline direct operational connections between the Tactical Data Links (TDL) laboratory based at the Ulm Elbit site and Israel’s ongoing military offensive in Gaza. Hever’s planned testimony explained that the TDL network facilitates real-time sharing of target coordinates between Israeli military personnel, with data routed to the Amazon and Google-run Nimbus Project cloud platform, where AI systems process information to generate targets at industrial scale, enabling unprecedented mass targeting in the Gaza conflict. After a full day of closed deliberations, presiding Judge Kathrin Lauchstadt rejected Hever’s testimony, claiming without supporting evidence that software developed at the Ulm lab bore no relevance to Israeli military operations in Gaza. Two days later, the court similarly rejected testimony from international law Professor Isabel Feichtner, who had been scheduled to present expert analysis on allegations of genocide in Gaza.
Defence attorney Benjamin Düsberg, who represents defendant Tatlow-Devally, lambasted the dual rulings as fundamentally “absurd,” noting that the court had not allowed any evidence on the alleged Elbit-Gaza operational connection to be presented at all, making its pre-emptive dismissal of the experts’ proposed testimony entirely unsubstantiated. In response, the full defence team has filed a formal motion demanding Judge Lauchstadt’s recusal on grounds of apparent bias, with Düsberg telling assembled reporters outside the courtroom that the entire proceedings amounted to “a pure show trial.”
Additional concerns raised by the defence and family members of the defendants highlight systemic irregularities in the investigation and trial process. Multiple prosecution-called police witnesses have repeatedly invoked either total amnesia regarding key case details or official confidentiality restrictions to avoid answering cross-examination questions, including queries about whether investigators were explicitly instructed by the prosecution not to probe Elbit Systems’ ties to military activity in Gaza. German legal statutes mandate that public prosecutors must investigate both incriminating and exculpatory evidence in any criminal case. Nina Oner, a defence lawyer representing defendant Hailu, noted that every time the defence raised questions about potential involvement of the German interior ministry or domestic intelligence services in the investigation, witnesses refused to answer, citing confidentiality rules. One lead investigating officer, tasked with auditing Elbit’s financial records, admitted in court that he never traced the destination of the 38% of Elbit’s Ulm site profits that were transferred overseas, claiming weapons technology and corporate finance tracking fell outside his official remit. Another officer, responsible for processing the five defendants at the local Ulm-Mitte police station immediately after their arrest, testified that she could not recall any details of her interactions with the group, including whether they had requested access to legal counsel, what time processing occurred, or what detention conditions they were held in. The defendants’ families allege that the group was denied access to lawyers and contact with family members for 12 full hours after their arrest, a violation of standard German due process protocols.
When contacted for comment, the Stuttgart regional court issued a brief statement noting it does not publicly comment on the conduct of individual judges or ongoing active proceedings, while confirming that the two defence expert witnesses had been formally rejected, and no final rulings had been issued on remaining pending defence evidence applications. The Stuttgart State Criminal Police Office also declined to comment, citing standing policy not to discuss details of ongoing active investigations.