Mansoor Q. enters the hall 0.020 of the district court Wiesbaden, hands tied behind his back, his head lowered. Ali B. hardly leaves his eyes, he fixes Mansoor Q. with a fixed look.
It's obvious why Mansoor Q., 14 years old, said he waited until Ali B. and his family left for his Iraqi home last June: Mansoor Q. is scared. Only after Ali B's escape Mansoor Q. trusted a police station in Wiesbaden. What he said there shattered the hope of all who had been searching for twelve days for the missing Susanna from Mainz, 14 years old.
Susanna is dead, Mansoor Q said at that time. He named the area where she was buried and the person she reportedly killed: Ali B., a refugee from Sachu, a Kurdish town in northern Iraq, arrived in October 2015. He is currently responsible for the murder of Susanna.
In the courtroom, Mansoor Q. sits between his lawyer and an interpreter. He says that he and his four brothers, two sisters and their parents came to Germany in autumn 2015, first to Giessen, then to Kassel, and finally to the asylum shelter in Wiesbaden-Erbenheim, where Ali B. was quartered with his family ; that he learned the German language, went to school and met Ali B's younger brother Haji, who became his best friend. He tells how they hung out with three other teenagers together in a park and in fast food stores, how they had fun and did. "Then nothing."
He avoids his gaze to the left, where Ali B. sits and focuses on him
Mansoor Q. feels uncomfortable, it's obvious to him. He avoids his gaze to the left, where Ali B. sits and focuses on him. When Chairman Judge Jürgen Bonk asks him how he met Ali B., how he would describe him, what kind of guy he is, Mansoor Q. becomes monosyllabic. "He was a good boy," says Mansoor Q. He had not had much contact with him, once Ali B. threatened him with a knife. Ali B. had been drunk, but he could not say more about the incident.
Mansoor Q's lawyer turns on. His client made him a "very inhibited, very timid" impression, which had an effect on the quality and content of the testimony, says Michael Harschneck and applies for the temporary exclusion of Ali B. under article 247a of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Prosecutor and suffrage support the procedure. "The impression of fear is obvious," says Petra Kaadtmann, the lawyer of Susanna's mother. "The defendant constantly seeks eye contact and tries to intimidate the witness," says prosecutor Sabine Kolb-Schlotter. Ali B's defenders see no limitation in the testimony of the witness. The chamber withdraws to the consultation.
"In the sense of the material explanation" removed from the hall
Judge Bonk announces the decision at 11:25 am: Ali B. is removed from the room "in the interest of clarifying the facts". An hour later, it spews out of Mansoor Q. Ali B. drinks often and too much, does not follow any rules, tends to violence and has proudly presented him with a pistol.
That night, when Ali B. threatened him with a knife, Ali B. wanted to rape a girl in the park. "He wanted to force me to do that with him," Mansoor Q claims. He refused, Ali B. was angry.
Susanna advised him to stay away from Ali B., Mansoor Q says. She too was afraid of Ali B. and said he had touched her twice against her will. On a bus ride to downtown Wiesbaden, Ali B. was said to have raved Susanne's erotic looks and said, "If she does not sleep with me, I'll kill her."
Who would have thought that he would meet Ali B. again?
When Mansoor Q. accused Ali B. of murder in June last year, he probably did not expect Ali B. to be found and extradited to Germany. And certainly not that he would meet him again someday.
It is not the first meeting of the two refugees: they are charged together in a separate case - in front of the youth protection chamber of the district court Wiesbaden - for rape in coincidence with severe sexual abuse. That's why Mansoor Q., who is only charged as a witness in the murder trial of Ali B. that day, enters the courtroom from the basement via the same secret path as the defendant. And why he too is tied up and escorted by law enforcement officers.