German court causes fresh uproar over access to neo-Nazi trial
Baku, May 3 (AZERTAC). A Munich court caused fresh uproar on Monday when a lottery it used to assign press seats to the trial of a suspected neo-Nazi accused of a series of racist murders left major German dailies and international news agencies without a place in court.
The trial is one of Germany`s most anticipated in decades and the murders by the far-right cell, which went undetected for more than a decade, have exposed deep intelligence lapses and a failure to recognise the threat of neo-Nazis.
The court`s decisions over how to allow the media to cover the case have been criticised from the outset by victims` lawyers, politicians and rights groups as a fiasco, and Monday`s lottery brought yet more criticism and legal threats.
The major German dailies Die Welt and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which are without a place, said they would consider legal action. Newspaper Taz said it was looking at a legal appeal for the court proceedings to be transmitted by video.
Monday`s lottery, which saw 324 applications for the seats drawn from 10 different lots, came after the court`s first allocation in March on a first-come first-served basis saw no Turkish journalists granted a guaranteed seat, even though eight of the victims were ethnic Turks.
This prompted a successful complaint by Turkish newspaper Sabah to Germany`s Constitutional Court, which ruled the Munich court had to make seats available to Turkish and Greek media.
The announcement on Monday of the 50 media representatives, which include women`s lifestyle magazine Brigitte, advertising journal Hallo Muenchen and a series of local newspapers and radio stations provoked jeers and howls of disbelief.
The court room is small and no video transmission of proceedings is allowed.
International news agencies Reuters, the Associated Press and Agence France Presse are also without guaranteed access.
"The allocation of media places stands in stark contrast to the immense national and international significance of this trial," the German Journalists` Association said in a statement.
