A man on trial in a landmark neo-Nazi court case in Germany apologised Thursday to the families of 10 murder victims and admitted providing support to the underground gang accused of the mostly racially motivated killings.
Holger Gerlach, 39, is the second of five defendants to testify at the trial in the southern city of Munich and the first to make an apology for their role in a years-long spree of murders, robberies and bomb attacks.
He told the court he had helped the three members of the extremist far-right National Socialist Underground (NSU) who spent almost 13 years in hiding by, among other things, providing identity papers.
But the defendant, who is charged with supporting a terrorist organisation, said he had not known about the murders blamed on the trio and had just wanted to help out friends.
“I am terribly sorry that I did this. I would like to apologise,” he told the superior regional court where he and four others went on trial last month over the case that has shaken and shamed Germany.
He also addressed the relatives of those killed, saying: “First of all, I would like to express my sympathy to the relatives of the victims.”
Among the accused is 38-year-old Beate Zschaepe who denies the charge of complicity in the murders of eight ethnic Turks, a Greek immigrant and a German policewoman between 2000 and 2007 as a founding member of the NSU.
The other three male defendants face charges of supporting the NSU.
Gerlach said in court that he was ready to assume responsibility for his role but contested the prosecution’s version of what that part was — he said he only knew that Zschaepe and her two now deceased co-members were living underground but that he could not have suspected their plans.
He also said he had left the far-right scene in 2004.
The random discovery of the NSU in late 2011 embarrassed authorities, exposing deep security flaws and raising uncomfortable questions about how the cell went undetected for 13 years in a country proud of owning up to its Nazi past.
The case only came to light after Zschaepe’s alleged accomplices, Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Boehnhardt, were found shot dead in an apparent murder-suicide.
The highly anticipated trial got off to an anti-climatic start amid several procedural motions by the defence team.
German neo-Nazi murder trial hears apology from accused
