The trial against a Russian who the public prosecutor’s office accuses of attempting to assassinate Russian journalists has begun in Berlin. He sees himself as a victim of a secret service operation.
The defendant showed no shyness. He allowed himself to be filmed and photographed, and did not insist that his face be blurred for publication. The Russian journalists present made extensive use of this before the trial against the Russian Dmitry B. began with the reading of the indictment.
One of four charges against the 55-year-old in the court case before the 22nd Criminal Chamber of the Berlin Regional Court: the attempt to “kill a person with dangerous means”.
To this end, he built an “unconventional explosive/incendiary device” (USBV) alone or with others and placed it in a basement shaft of an apartment building in Berlin-Steglitz, according to senior public prosecutor Klaus-Michael Wachs. It is said to have been a canister with a mixture of waste oil and fuel, connected to an ignition device and a gas cartridge.
However, this USBV did not explode. It was discovered in the late afternoon of May 6, 2022. That day, the users of the house, which is owned by the Russian state, called the police. A bottle was thrown at a window.
The Russian embassy then spoke of a “possible terrorist attack against Russian journalists and their family members”. The indictment makes no mention of throwing the bottle.
reporter in your own case
The journalists who are said to have lived and worked in the house and were therefore the target of the alleged attempted attack do not appear as joint plaintiffs. It is to be expected that one or more will be summoned as witnesses. Otherwise, they act as reporters in their case, including at the well-attended start of the trial in room 700 of the criminal court in Berlin-Moabit.
Dmitry B’s defense attorney Elvis Jochmann referred to the coverage of the Kremlin-affiliated media when he answered questions from German journalists about his client after the end of the day of the trial. Dmitry B., who stated his profession as a journalist and engineer, was obviously uncomfortable with his actions in Berlin.
Hostilities from the Russian media
Among other things, the accused was one of the organizers of a multi-week protest camp at the Brandenburg Gate in 2021. On 21 posters they showed opponents of Vladimir Putin who were murdered, poisoned or imprisoned.
Among them were the journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot dead in 2006, the opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza, but also the Chechen-born Georgian Selimkhan Changoschvili – shot four years ago by a Russian who had just been sentenced to life imprisonment in that dock in room 700 of the criminal court was.
Just as the verdict in the “Tiergarten murder” was attacked by the Russian state as “politically motivated”, Dmitry B. and his comrades-in-arms also experienced hostility from the Russian media for their actions.
The situation in Berlin was particularly tense around the time the explosive device was found at the journalists’ house. It was just before Liberation Day and Victory Day on May 9, 2022, when numerous commemorations were to be held, in light of the Russian attack on Ukraine barely three months earlier.
A few days earlier, the Russian state medium RT Deutsch published an article reporting on alleged plans by Ukrainians to attack Russian citizens in Germany. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution warned against Russian actions under “false flags” before the commemoration days.
victim of one intelligence operation?
B. denies the allegations. He sees himself as a victim of a Russian secret service operation, said Piet Mumm, his second defense attorney. tagesschau.de communicated. Jochmann also indicated after the first day of the hearing that the defense could argue in this direction against the prosecution in the dates set up until December.
Jochmann announced a statement for the next day of negotiations on September 13th. His client himself will not get involved at first. He is accused of three other counts that have nothing to do with the incident in Berlin-Steglitz. It is about an alleged fraudulent way of obtaining Corona aid and the tapping of the electricity and gas lines in the apartment building that he lived in.
In isolation
B. has been in custody since December 14. He was practically in isolation without contact with other people, said Jochmann. His client is doing very badly, also due to hostility from other prisoners.
At the court hearing, B. made an exhausted impression with a three-day beard and briefly waved at someone in the audience. One thing he made clear at the start, even without words: he doesn’t want to hide, not even from the Russian media.