{"id":565442,"date":"2026-07-24T05:37:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T05:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/565442\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T05:37:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T05:37:12","slug":"ireland-urged-to-put-pressure-on-germany-over-pro-palestinian-activists-trial-ireland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/565442\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland urged to put pressure on Germany over pro-Palestinian activist\u2019s trial | Ireland"},"content":{"rendered":"

A cross-party delegation of Irish politicians has urged Dublin to send observers to a high-security trial of pro-Palestinian activists in Germany<\/a> and to raise concerns about the Irish defendant\u2019s detention when the German chancellor visits next week.<\/p>\n

Mair\u00e9ad Farrell of Sinn F\u00e9in, a member of the seven-member delegation, said she and her colleagues had attended the hearing in Stuttgart on Wednesday of the so-called Ulm 5<\/a> activists, who are facing charges over an attack on an Israeli arms company.<\/p>\n

Farrell and two other members of the delegation visited Daniel Tatlow-Devally, the Irish defendant being tried as part of the group, in prison. \u201cI was quite shocked by the treatment that he is receiving. He is 23 hours a day in his cell,\u201d Farrell said, calling on the Irish prime minister, Miche\u00e1l Martin, to discuss the issue with the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, when he visits on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Farrell said: \u201cHis cell, from what I understand, is 5×2 metres. He doesn\u2019t have much in his cell, so he\u2019s stuck there for 23 hours a day. He only has an hour of visitation per month, which is obviously incredibly short.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just seems that there\u2019s very harsh conditions that seem unwarranted for the scale of the fact that these people haven\u2019t harmed people.\u201d<\/p>\n

German prosecutors say Tatlow-Devally was part of a group of five activists who trespassed on to a site owned by Israel\u2019s Elbit Systems last September in the southern city of Ulm, shouting pro-Palestinian slogans as they destroyed equipment and smashed windows. They allegedly caused about \u20ac1m (\u00a3850,000) in damage.<\/p>\n

The activists posted videos online in which they claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was aimed at drawing attention to Germany\u2019s support for Israel and its actions in Gaza. Germany is the second biggest supplier of arms to Israel, after the US.<\/p>\n

The defendants have remained defiant throughout the proceedings, with Tatlow-Devally telling the court in May<\/a> that the group was motivated by \u201curgent humanitarian concerns\u201d and sought to \u201cmake a fuss \u2026 in the hope to at least interrupt\u201d Elbit\u2019s deliveries to Israel.<\/p>\n

Last month, a British judge imposed lengthy custodial sentences<\/a> on four Palestine Action activists who smashed up drones and other equipment at an Elbit Systems UK factory, after ruling that there was a \u201cterrorist connection\u201d to their offending.<\/p>\n

Farrell said German authorities had not allowed the Irish delegation to discuss the case with Tatlow-Devally. \u201cThat felt, I suppose, quite unusual for us,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The politicians also found fault with the trial itself. The defendants, Farrell said, \u201care basically in a glass cage or behind a glass wall, unable to communicate with their lawyers in \u2026 a kind of free manner\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cOne of the accused said that they felt that they couldn\u2019t really participate fully in the trial \u2026 because of these barriers that have been put in place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lawyers for the defendants, Berlin-based activists who are British, Irish, German and Spanish citizens, have repeatedly raised the issue of the glass wall with the court, saying it hinders their clients\u2019 right to representation.<\/p>\n

The five activists have been charged with trespassing, destruction of property and membership of a criminal organisation \u2013 Palestine Action<\/a> Germany \u2013 under section 129 of the German criminal code.<\/p>\n

That charge means authorities consider the accused a threat to society, allowing them to deny bail, even after the six-month limit of pre-trial detention had passed. If found guilty, they face up to five years in prison.<\/p>\n

Court representatives have said the conditions of the defendants\u2019 detention are warranted based on the severity of the charges against them.<\/p>\n

Before the trial began in April, Stuttgart\u2019s higher regional court ordered the continuation of pre-trial detention for all defendants based on \u201ca risk of flight, which would not be sufficiently mitigated even by the posting of bail\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Ulm 5 are Berlin-based activists who are British, Irish, German and Spanish citizens.<\/p>\n

Farrell said it was \u201cabsolutely crucial\u201d for the Irish government to send envoys to regularly attend hearings until a verdict was delivered. \u201cThat was something that couldn\u2019t have been clearer coming out of that trial yesterday: that there is a need for observers,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Farrell urged Martin to bring up the Ulm 5 case when Merz visits for talks focused on Dublin\u2019s six-month presidency of the EU, which began on 1 July.<\/p>\n

She said the Irish prime minister needed to raise concerns expressed by the defendant, his family and the delegation related to his treatment in prison and \u201chis access in terms of legal representation as part of the trial\u201d.<\/p>\n

The delegation included the MPs Richard Boyd Barrett and Ruth Coppinger, both of the People Before Profit-Solidarity party, Barry Ward of Fine Gael and Duncan Smith of Labour, as well as senator Patricia Stephenson of the Social Democrats and MEP Lynn Boylan of Sinn F\u00e9in.<\/p>\n

Farrell said the group aimed to return to Germany before the trial wrapped up, probably in January: \u201cThis isn\u2019t the end for us. We will be keeping an eye on this trial.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A cross-party delegation of Irish politicians has urged Dublin to send observers to a high-security trial of pro-Palestinian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565443,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-565442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565442","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=565442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}