Who is Prisoner Ernst Zundel? Judge for yourself! - Part 4

[zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org]

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Even though we have two active law suits in the courts in the U.S., 
the  German judge, in charge of reading Ernst's mail, has ruled that 
Ernst is not entitled to uncensored, confidential correspondence with 
our immigration attorney, stating that what was happening in the U.S. 
and Canada were merely "administrative" proceedings.  Odd, though, 
that "administrative" proceedings could justify a political 
kidnapping,  two years of brutal and humiliating confinement in an 
isolation cell, and a 20 year ban on returning to the U.S., in effect 
ending our marriage - unless we find a way to let sanity and justice 
return to this case! 

In the letter below, Ernst tells me of a "typical" court day:

[START]

I was in court on the 16th of August, which meant waking up at 5:30 
a.m. to get ready for the guards who come punctually every morning at 
6:00 a.m. to open the door to make a visual check of each cell to see 
if a prisoner is alive or did himself in during the night.

With me, it's easy - they can see at once that I am alive.  I greet 
them at my cell door, envelopes ready for the censors or the lawyers, 
or a requisition for the staff in hand for pail and broom to clean my 
cell, sometimes an order for those lovely CDs of uplifting classical 
and religious music.

The young guard surprised me with a warm smile and asked me very 
politely:  "Would you like to take a shower before court?"  I had 
written another letter to you, thinking it would lift your spirits 
and hoping to produce something of use and value while I was still 
allowed to write and had a real pen, even a fountain pen - such 
luxury!  I had only turned the light off shortly after 2:00 a.m. so I 
was grateful for the shower.

I will spare you the ride to court, painfully handcuffed with my arms 
behind my back, and the over 3 hour wait in a windowless holding 
cell, until I was finally led into a huge courtroom which looked like 
a conference center meeting room or a food court in one of America's 
more ritzy shopping centers, with white plastic chairs and light blue 
upholstery.  I have never been in any courtroom in any country 
anywhere that looked like that!  There was no German flag, and where 
in America the US flag and heraldic bird is always present in 
blue-white, gold-embossed carving, looking very dignified and 
stately, here the wall behind the judge's elevated seats was graced 
by a stark flat-iron in black matte deer with antlers of 
Baden-Würthemberg.  I could not believe it!

One solitary young judge, appr. 45-50 years old, with a secretary, 
was sitting slightly elevated, talking to my attorney, Jürgen Rieger. 
I thought that Rieger was in Sweden on holidays - I had expected 
attorney Sylvia Stolz alone, who was delayed by 20 minutes by an 
accident on the Autobahn.  I was brought up from my cell, 15 minutes 
late.  Jürgen was already talking about the Power of Attorney for 
Bruce, [our American immigration attorney], and it was dealt with and 
cleared up.  He does not have to worry.  He cannot use the Power of 
Attorney here, so he can stop worrying about responsibilities, 
translations etc.  It was a revealing exercise.  Neither of my 
attorneys understood what Judge M. cleared up very quickly in an 
earlier letter - that I was not involved in criminal trials in Canada 
or the USA but administrative proceedings, which were not covered by 
a privilege protecting client-attorney relationships

The mail matter came up - that there were boxes of unread letters at 
the court, and what to do with it.  They simply did not have the 
manpower or time to deal with it, etc.  In the end it was decided 
that whatever was not allowed to be given to me, Jürgen would get. 
He would go through it whenever he had a few hours - at least the 
important documents, books, etc. which could be useful to the defense 
rather than accumulating in the basement of the court or prison.

I had to give Jürgen permission, noted in the court record, to read 
and to store this excessive mail.  Amazing, Ingrid, what 
consternation that flow of mail has caused in Canada and in Germany! 
I always thought that everybody got that much mail.  Apparently it 
seems to be a lot for most people.  Live and learn!

A few more technical details were dealt with, like the request by 
Judge M. about adding one more duty counsel, called 
Pflichtverteidiger, which both the lawyers declared as highly 
irregular - unheard-of in a case where there are already two defense 
attorneys paid by us.  It seems that a tentative understanding 
between Rieger, Scholz and the judge was reached, and I will write to 
the judge tonight to summarize the feeling by both lawyers, offering 
Frau Stolz as duty counsel, which means I cannot fire her until the 
trial is over.  That's what they seemed afraid of - that I would fire 
her, or Jürgen, or both - or that they would walk out on me because 
of the tricky legal situation. They must have some weird, erroneous, 
maybe media-generated, distorted view of me.  Weird, Ingrid!   All 
weird stuff, with an air of unreality about it all.  If it were not 
so far-reaching in its consequences, one could almost find it 
amusing.  The whole thing lasted maybe 35 minutes.

Then the lawyers asked me, the judge, and the court staff if they 
could talk to me in my cell, which was mercifully permitted.  Hours 
were spent in that narrow, stuffy cell, with a hard wooden bench for 
Jürgen, bolted to the floor, I leaning against the wall, Sylvia 
sitting in a chair - upholstered, no less! - brought in by the guards 
for her.  Nothing to eat, nothing to drink, and no toilet pit stop. 
There was of course a toilet in the cell, but naturally, everybody 
politely refused to use it. 

By the end of the afternoon, we had pretty well arrived at an 
understanding, divisions of work and responsibilities - and Jürgen, 
who has over 30 years experience as a defense attorney 
[Strafverteidiger,  literal translation in German:  punishment 
attorney] walked me through the differences between Anglo-Saxon legal 
traditions and what they have evolved and adopted here since 
Germany's defeat in 1945. 

Ingrid, Bruce discerned that at once when he pointed out the odd role 
of the judge in these proceedings.  In Anglo-Saxon legal proceedings, 
we have an adversarial system.  Prosecution and defense appear before 
a Solomonic judge who rarely interferes in the proceedings, and a 
jury that can overrule a judge.  Not here!  Here the judges 
investigate and try a case.  They do most of the questioning and 
researching, assisted by the prosecutor.  Judges have virtually 
unchecked powers.  There really are no verifications possible because 
there are no verbatim court transcripts to reveal what was said, 
claimed, stated by whom - which leaves the doors wide open for 
quoting someone in a distorted, totally false way - with emphasis on 
one thing by the defense, another by the prosecution, and a third by 
the judge.  Imagine that!

Since there are no transcripts to go back to, guess whose views and 
recollections usually win out?  It's a foregone conclusion. 

I was absolutely shocked also by the role of witnesses and the 
latitude given them, and by the place of the accused in all this. 
What a system!  Unbelievable!

Ingrid, believe me - I was a lucky man, and the Germans ought to be 
eternally grateful to me, that I subjected myself to these grueling 
trials - to have every word, every document, every nuance recorded by 
a neutral court stenographer.  It really is a bequest I will leave to 
history which ceased to be in Germany when they changed their system 
away from what was almost a British system with transcripts and nine 
instead of 12 jury members in the 1960s and 1970s. 

[END]

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