This episode is a recording of a panel discussion that took place recently in Madrid about at the current trial in Germany of the activists who have become known as the Ulm5. The Ulm5 –Daniel, Crow, Leandra, Zo and Vi – were arrested on 8 September 2025 in connection with an action at Elbit Systems in Ulm, Germany. The aim of the action was to damage equipment and disrupt the flow of arms to Israel and stop the genocide in Gaza. Defence lawyers intend to call genocide scholars, arms industry experts, and medical personal who have been in Gaza as expert witnesses, and have also raised multiple concerns about the trial.

Speaking on the panel were Mathes Breuer, a defence lawyer of one of the defendants; Nicky Robertson, the mother of Zo; Clara Tatlow-Devally, sister of Daniel; and Mimi Tatlow-Golden, mother of Daniel.

The defendants have been in pre-trial detention since their arrest. Four are held in cells for 20 to 23 hours per day, some of them in single cells. There is no jury; the main judge with two subordinate judges and two lay judges will determine the verdict. No full transcript of trial of the trial is being made. Permission for the defence team to have a note taker to make their own transcript of the trial has been denied; or to allow an audio recording. Members of the public are not allowed to take notes. The defendants are isolated from their defence lawyersbehind a thick security glass enclosure, making unhindered and confidential communication between them impossible, and the defendants are led into court each day in handcuffs. The trial is taking place in Stammheim, the high-security prison prison complex outside Stuttgart, a venue normally used for cases involving terrorism etc., that has become synonymous in Germany with the 1970s trials of the RAF (so-called Baader-Meinhof gang).

Since recording the podcast, seven Irish parliamentarians have attended the court as observers. The Parliamentarians had their pens confiscated and were not allowed to take notes. In a subsequent press conference several of them referred to the trial as a ‘show trail’. The ‘Press Conference: Show Trial of Daniel Tatlow-Devally & the Ulm 5 ’ is available at https://www.youtube.com/live/PxPpzbPJDmo

The following source of background information were referred to during the podcast:

Summary of UN “The essence of childhood has been destroyed”: Israel’s deliberate targeting of Palestinian children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 7 October 2023 – Report (A/HRC/62/CRP.2): https://www.un.org/unispal/document/coi-report-23jun26/

War Crimes Archive – Gaza is at https://archivegenocide.com

To date the archives contains 110,472 videos · 41,224 photos, with ability to download individual videos, a searchable index, and exhaustive sources list (300+ journalists), geolocation data, and a livemap with minute to minute updates.

Further information is also available at https://ulm5.info/en/