{"id":559209,"date":"2026-07-20T15:35:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T15:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/559209\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T15:35:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T15:35:12","slug":"irish-politicians-to-attend-trial-of-dubliner-charged-with-damage-of-israeli-arms-factory-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/559209\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish politicians to attend trial of Dubliner charged with damage of Israeli arms factory \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A delegation of Irish parliamentarians is to travel to Germany<\/a> to attend the trial of an Irishman charged with trespassing and an estimated \u20ac1 million in criminal damage to an Israeli<\/a>-owned arms factory in Ulm.<\/p>\n

The next session of the trial of the 32-year-old Dubliner Daniel Tatlow-Devally and four Berlin-based activists takes place in Stuttgart on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Sinn F\u00e9in TD Mair\u00e9ad Farrell<\/a> and Richard Boyd Barrett<\/a> of People Before Profit-Solidarity are part of a seven-member Irish delegation in Germany to attend.<\/p>\n

Other TDs set to attend include TDs Ruth Coppinger (People before Profit-Solidarity), Barry Ward (Fine Gael) and Duncan Smith (Labour) as well as Senator Patricia Stephenson (Social Democrats) and MEP Lynn Boylan (Sinn F\u00e9in).<\/p>\n

Germany\u2019s federal prosecutor has charged Tatlow-Devally and the four others \u2013 two UK citizens, a German and a Spanish citizen \u2013 with trespassing and an estimated \u20ac1 million in criminal damage to an Israeli-owned arms factory in Ulm, an hour from Stuttgart, last September.<\/p>\n

The five admit to the break-in: they filmed and posted online clips of themselves damaging the factory as part of a protest against the involvement of its ultimate owner, Elbit Systems, in Israel\u2019s war in Gaza<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But Tatlow-Devally told the trial in May the group was motivated by \u201curgent humanitarian concerns\u201d and, by damaging Elbit production capacity in Germany, wanted to \u201cmake a fuss … in the hope to at least interrupt\u201d its deliveries to Israel.<\/p>\n

Their defence team say they will prove their clients\u2019 actions were permissible acts of protest \u201cto disrupt the production of weapons Israel is using to target civilians\u201d.<\/p>\n

As well as criminal damage and trespass, the five are being charged with membership of a criminal organisation and use of symbols linked to Hamas, classified in Germany as a terrorist organisation. If convicted, they could face up to five years in prison.<\/p>\n

The defendants\u2019 families and legal team have described the proceedings, which began in April in a high-security Stuttgart prison-court complex, as a \u201cshow trial\u201d. <\/p>\n

Remand conditions, including 23-hour lock-up for Tatlow-Devally, are disproportionate, they argue, as the September attacks were on property \u2013 not people \u2013 and carried out by people with no criminal records.<\/p>\n

In advance of his visit, Boyd Barrett said the five were being treated and tried in \u201cinhumane conditions\u201d, under laws and in a manner \u201cnormally reserved for terrorists and organised criminals\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe defendants are not hiding that they engaged in an act of civil disobedience, but they are a danger to no one,\u201d he said, noting the company they targeted produced weapons aiding a war in Israel that \u201cthe Irish Government itself has said is a genocidal and illegal campaign\u201d.<\/p>\n

Federal prosecutors and Stuttgart district court dismiss the criticisms, saying the venue \u2013 with tight admission controls and dozens of police posted inside and outside the court \u2013 is appropriate for what has been classified a \u201cstate protection\u201d trial.<\/p>\n

The families have called for an observer from the Department of Foreign Affairs. Ireland\u2019s Munich-based consul general James C O\u2019Shea has engaged in the case and visited Tatlow-Devally in prison, but no Irish official has attended the hearing to date.<\/p>\n

Defence lawyers for the five have filed multiple additional motions challenging what they view as problematic and prejudicial nature of holding proceedings in the high-security Stammheim complex.<\/p>\n

The modern building was opened in 2019 on the site of an earlier facility used in the 1970s trials of members of the extreme-left terrorist group the Red Army Faction.<\/p>\n

The trial is set to run on non-consecutive hearing days until January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A delegation of Irish parliamentarians is to travel to Germany to attend the trial of an Irishman charged…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1844,136338,3409,292,61,60,3410,69543,14947,43,68900,59995],"class_list":["post-559209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-department-of-foreign-affairs","tag-duncan-smith","tag-gaza-strip","tag-germany","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-israel","tag-lynn-boylan","tag-mairead-farrell","tag-news","tag-richard-boyd-barrett","tag-ruth-coppinger"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}