In the mafia trial before the Duisburg district court, the defense lawyers filed a petition for bias against one of the lay judges - because the lay judge fell asleep so deeply during the questioning of a key witness that he had to be woken up.

A court spokesman confirmed a request for rejection to the FAZ.

David Klaubert

Editor in the section “Germany and the World”.

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In the trial, which began in October 2020, 14 men are charged with international cocaine trafficking.

The public prosecutor's office also accuses five of them of belonging to the 'ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia.

Originally 91 negotiation days were planned for the process until the end of this year.

Also because there were delays due to corona diseases and the quarantine of a defendant, appointments are now set until December 2022.

Defense attorney kept "sleep log"

Key witness Giuseppe T. has been questioned in the high-security wing of the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court for a few weeks. He is not personally present for this - he is switched on via video from a “safe place” in Italy. T. comes from a small town in Calabria. He claims that he never became a member of the 'ndrangheta himself. However, for years he had organized cocaine transports from South America to Europe on behalf of important mafia clans. In 2015 he decided to cooperate with the Italian judiciary. His own sentence was reduced for this, but he was convicted again at the end of 2018 for perpetrating assaults during the witness protection program.

During the video session with this key witness, one of the two lay judges of the 4th major criminal chamber nodded off on Monday morning.

According to information from the FAZ, he was woken up by one of the professional judges, whereupon one of the defense lawyers requested that the incident be recorded.

Another defense attorney, who sits at the front of the very large courtroom, spoke up and read a "sleep log" that he himself had kept.

Since the beginning of December, the jury had nodded off on at least six days of negotiations, sometimes for minutes.

The defense lawyers of all defendants agreed to the motion to reject the lay judge on the grounds of bias.

"Anyone who falls asleep shows to the outside world: none of that interests him," lawyer Patrick Lauterbach explains the move.

After a similar incident before the Münster Regional Court, the chamber decided a few years ago to replace the lay judge and start the main hearing all over again. At that time, however, the lay judge nodded off on the first day of the trial. Last year, the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe ruled that a lay judge who had "slept soundly for a not inconsiderable period of time" before the Kassel Regional Court is an absolute reason for appeal. The procedure, which had already been concluded with a judgment, had to be reopened.

The chamber in Duisburg now wants to decide on the bias application by the next day of negotiations at the beginning of January.

Even if the judges allowed him, the hearing would not break.

As is usual with such large proceedings, in addition to the three professional judges and the two lay judges, a supplementary judge and three supplementary lay judges have also been present since the start of the negotiations.

Should the tired aldermen fail, he could be replaced immediately.