Trial of German Neo-Nazi Is Delayed Over Media Concerns – NYTimes.com

Trial of a Neo-Nazi in Germany Is Delayed Over Media Concerns

By MELISSA EDDY

BERLIN — After weeks of outrage in Germany and Turkey over how seats for members of the foreign news media were allocated at the trial of a prominent neo-Nazi, a state court in Munich said Monday that it would delay the opening of the trial by three weeks to allow for a new accreditation process.

Reuters

Beate Zschäpe

The decision — only two days before Beate Zschäpe, the sole survivor of a neo-Nazi cell that killed 10 people, was to go on trial — was met with a mixture of relief and anger. Representatives of the relatives of victims expressed frustration that the court had waited so long to find a solution to a problem that had drawn in government officials.

Revelation of the cell’s existence in late 2011 shocked Germans and raised questions about how security authorities could have failed for the better part of a decade to stop the group from killing minorities. The cell’s members killed eight men of Turkish descent, a Greek and a German policewoman.

Among the most dismayed at the trial’s delay were the victims’ relatives, many of whom had made travel arrangements and taken time off from work to attend the trial, said Barbara John, the ombudswoman appointed by the German government to represent their interests.

Jens Rabe, a lawyer for Kerim and Semiya Simsek, whose father was the cell’s first victim in 2000, called the last-minute decision “more than annoying.”

“The delay of the trial opening is the result of the court’s unyielding position and refusal to accept criticism or constructive suggestions for solutions,” Mr. Rabe said.

Since it became clear last month that no Turkish journalists were among the 50 reporters — out of more than 100 who applied — to be guaranteed a seat in the courtroom, calls for their inclusion spread from the news media to politicians in Turkey and Germany.

On Friday, Germany’s highest court ruled in favor of a Turkish journalist who had filed a petition to be allowed into the courtroom, citing what he called an unfair distribution of seats. The journalist, Ismail Erel, an editor at the Turkish newspaper Sabah, had argued to the constitutional court in Karlsruhe that the e-mail informing him about the accreditation arrived 19 minutes later than at several German newspapers, enough of a delay to jeopardize his chances for a guaranteed seat.

Officials including Philipp Rösler, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s deputy, and Germany’s minister for immigrant affairs, had urged the court to show “sensitivity” in handling the Turkish media’s appeals to attend the trial.

Margarete Nötzel, a spokeswoman for the Munich court, said in a statement that given the constitutional court’s ruling on Friday, “a new accreditation process will be necessary. ” She gave no details about how the process would be conducted.

A version of this article appeared in print on April 16, 2013, on page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: Trial of a Neo-Nazi in Germany Is Delayed Over Media Concerns.

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