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State Prosecutor Then, Mr Koch, I have only one more question for you: would you have fired if your wife had been on that plane?

Defendant What?

State Prosecutor Your wife and your son. What if they had been on the plane? Would you have killed them too?

Defendant I… I…

Defence Counsel What is the point of this question? This is outrageous.

State Prosecutor No, what’s outrageous isn’t the question, it’s your interruptions.

Presiding Judge Please, please.

Defence Counsel I cannot…

Presiding Judge Let’s calm down, shall we? Counsel, you are aware that it is our task to investigate whether the defendant’s statement stands up. Or whether it is simply an assertion. The Prosecutor’s question is specifically aimed to do that.

Defence Counsel Possibly. But it is certainly not our job…

Defendant Wait. I am not going to ask myself that question. I can’t.

State Prosecutor What can’t you do?

Defendant Every answer is wrong.

State Prosecutor You’re right. Because it’s a matter of life.

I have no further questions for the defendant.

Presiding Judge Counsel, do you have any more questions for your client?

Defence Counsel No.

Presiding Judge Fine, then you may return to your seat next to your Counsel, Mr Koch.

The Defendant sits down next to the Defence Counsel.

So, if I hear no objections I would now propose to hear the joint plaintiff as a witness.

Defence Counsel and Prosecutor nod.

Mrs Meiser, you are the joint plaintiff in this case and at the same time you are also a witness. We would like to hear you. Please take a seat in the witness’s chair.

Mrs Meiser walks to the witness’s chair and sits down.

Presiding Judge Mrs Meiser, I’d like to have your personal details for the record. What is your first name?

Meiser Franziska.

Presiding Judge And your age at your last birthday?

Meiser Thirty-four.

Presiding Judge Where do you live?

Meiser In Munich, it’s Truderinger…

Presiding Judge (interrupts) It’s alright, thank you, we don’t need the address. Munich is sufficient. What is your profession?

Meiser I’m a nurse.

Presiding Judge And are you working at the moment?

Meiser Yes, at the University Hospital.

Presiding Judge Are you related to the defendant by birth or by marriage?

Meiser No.

Presiding Judge Mrs Meiser, as with every witness here, I am obliged to instruct you. You are obliged to tell the truth here, you are not allowed to omit anything or add anything. False testimony in court is punished severely. Do you understand that?

Meiser Yes.

Presiding Judge (to Stenographer) Instruction completed.

The Stenographer stamps the record accordingly.

Presiding Judge Mrs Meiser, your husband was one of the passengers who died on board Lufthansa flight LH 2047…

Meiser No.

Presiding Judge No?

Meiser He didn’t die. They killed him.

Nods in the direction of the Defendant.

Presiding Judge Please tell us about the day it happened. We can pause in the proceedings at any time if you so wish.

Meiser Well, it was like this. That morning my husband rang up and told me when he was coming back. From Berlin. He worked for Siemens. He’d flown to Berlin that morning for a meeting.

Presiding Judge I see.

Meiser I’d just done two night shifts at the hospital. So I had the day off. I was going to pick him up in the car. I used to do that sometimes – you know the airport is such a long way out, a taxi’s very expensive. And he doesn’t like getting the train. When I got to the airport the arrivals board just said ‘delayed’.

Presiding Judge Were you alone at the airport?

Meiser No. What do you mean, alone?

Presiding Judge Had you taken anyone with you?

Meiser Oh, right. No, our daughter was at home. My mother was looking after her.

Presiding Judge So you were alone.

Meiser Yes.

Presiding Judge What happened after you had read on the arrivals board that the flight was delayed?

Meiser Then I got the text.

Presiding Judge The text?

Meiser Yes.

Presiding Judge Mrs Meiser, please. What did the text say?

Meiser Sorry. I’ll read it to you. The police confiscated my phone, I still haven’t got it back. But I wrote the message down.

She takes a piece of paper out of her handbag and reads it aloud.

‘We have been hijacked by terrorists. We’re trying to get into the cockpit. Don’t be afraid, we will make it. I love you.’ That’s all, there’s no more. Of course I wrote straight back, but there was no answer.

Presiding Judge What did you write?

Meiser I can’t remember exactly. I think it was ‘Oh God, what’s happened?’ or something like that.

Presiding Judge Can you tell us the time of the text message?

Meiser Which one?

Presiding Judge From your husband.

Meiser Yes, wait a minute. 19:48 and 12 seconds. I copied it out from my phone.

Presiding Judge When did you copy it?

Meiser Right at the end. When the policeman told me he needed my phone.

Presiding Judge Yes, thank you. In the police notes on page 86, Volume 7 it says your mobile phone was synchronised to a European time-server.

Meiser Excuse me?

Presiding Judge It means that the time on your phone was correct.

Meiser It does that automatically, I think.

Presiding Judge That’s what I was saying. What happened after you received the text?

Meiser I immediately showed my phone to a policeman. I told him my husband would never joke about that sort of thing. The policeman was very young, he still had spots, and he turned bright red. I remember that very clearly. He alerted somebody straight away. I was taken to a room somewhere behind the security desks. Everyone was suddenly very agitated, I could tell. And now I stared getting really scared. People were coming in and going out again all the time. In, out. The whole time.

Presiding Judge When did they confirm that the aeroplane had been hijacked?

Meiser They didn’t, not to begin with. An older policeman came in and tried to calm me down. But I’m a nurse, you see, I know all about how to talk to patients. And that’s exactly what he sounded like. I didn’t believe him.

Presiding Judge And then?

Meiser Eventually another policeman came in, together with a woman. The woman wasn’t in uniform. The policeman, who was called Haller or Höller or something like that, sat down next to me. He spoke in a very calm voice. But that only made it worse, you know, someone talking calmly like that. He said that the plane had been hijacked and then shot down. And that now they were looking for survivors.