Hanno Hauenstein
+972 Magazine / April 28, 2026
The ‘Ulm 5’ are facing prison time over a break-in at an Israeli weapons firm, in a case experts warn could set a precedent for criminalizing direct action.
In the early hours of Sept. 8, 2025, a group of activists wearing black hoodies that bore the red and white logo of Palestine Action broke into the offices of Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems in Ulm, southern Germany.
Once inside the compound, according to prosecutors, they damaged and partly destroyed furniture, windows, and technical equipment with axes; sprayed slogans on the walls; lit pyrotechnics; and chanted “Free, free Palestine” and “Germany finances, Israel bombs.” As visible from the activists’ own filming of the break-in, no one was harmed during the action. They remained on site and called the police, who later detained them.
Since their arrest, the five activists — Daniel Tatlow-Devally (an Irish citizen), Leandra Rollo (a Spanish citizen), Crow Tricks and Zo Hailu (British citizens), and Vi Kovarbasic (a German citizen) — have been held in pre-trial detention in separate prisons across southern Germany.
Relatives and lawyers have raised concerns about the “highly problematic” conditions in which the activists have been held, including strict monitoring of phone calls, visits, and correspondence with the outside world. Four of the five are held in their cells for up to 23 hours a day. Access to books, exercise, and communal activities is severely restricted.
After nearly eight months in these conditions, the highly anticipated trial against the activists who have come to be known as the “Ulm 5” began this Monday. It is taking place in Stammheim, the high-security prison complex outside Stuttgart that has become synonymous in Germany with the 1970s trials of the so-called Red Army Faction (RAF).
Stammheim is a highly symbolic choice of venue, not least because in the crackdown on pro-Palestine speech and activism of recent years, many Germans see echoes of the repressive climate surrounding the so-called Radikalenerlass (Radicals Decree) of the RAF era — a West German policy targeting the left, in which public sector applicants and employees were screened for constitutional loyalty and often lost the right to practice their jobs.
In a joint statement earlier this month, lawyers representing the activists argued that holding the trial in Stammheim amounts to “a pre-judgement of the defendants” and gives little confidence for a fair trial. Benjamin Düsberg, who represents the Irish activist Tatlow-Devally, points to what he sees as a broader ideological layer shaping the case, tied to what is known in Germany as Staatsräson, its doctrine of near-unconditional support for Israel.
“This is about sending a signal: that direct action — especially when it targets the military-industrial complex — will be met with the full force of the state,” Düsberg told +972. “In a normal case, you wouldn’t see months of pre-trial detention for property damage and trespassing.”
Attacks on Elbit facilities have occurred in several countries, with some linked to Palestine Action organizations in the UK or other parts of Europe. The British government proscribed Palestine Action as a terrorist organization last July, a decision later ruled unlawful by British courts. (The government’s appeal against that ruling begins this week.)
None of the five defendants has a prior conviction. But now they face charges of trespassing and property damage estimated at more than €1 million and using the symbols of unconstitutional organizations — including “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which was classified by the German Interior Ministry as a Hamas symbol and banned.
Central to the case is a fourth charge: membership in a criminal organization, prosecuted under Section 129 of the German Criminal Code. Although Palestine Action has not been outlawed in Germany, the use of Section 129 allows the state to deny bail and justify extended pre-trial detention on the grounds that the accused pose a threat to society. If found guilty, the invocation of Section 129 could pose prison sentences of five years for the accused.
Paula Zimmermann, an expert on freedom of expression and assembly at Amnesty International Germany, told +972 there were “serious human rights and rule-of-law concerns” about the use of this section of the criminal code in this trial.
“What is being prosecuted here is not just property damage and trespassing, but political dissent colliding with a state doctrine,” Düsberg said. “These are people seen as incompatible with this society. They are constructed as enemies, as antisemites, as ‘Hamas supporters’ — which makes it easier to treat them not as legal subjects, but as adversaries.”
A verdict against the five activists is expected by late July.
‘Authoritarian methods’
After the five defendants entered the courtroom in handcuffs, the trial started Monday with a tense standoff between the 11-member defense team and presiding judge Kathrin Lauchstädt over courtroom conditions and due process. Members of the legal team argued the trial’s setup — including a thick glass barrier separating the defendants from their lawyers — made communication impossible and was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.
“The court is using authoritarian methods to prevent the defense from exercising fundamental rights,” defense lawyer Matthias Schuster told +972 after the hearing, arguing that the state seeks to portray the defendants as a threat to justify both the severity of the proceedings and their continued detention.
Judge Lauchstädt repeatedly curtailed the defense’s ability to speak, at one point stating she would no longer accept any of the motions raised at the outset of the trial. “The defense was effectively deprived of its most important right and silenced,” Schuster said.
The judge also asserted her sole authority over the trial record: “You do not decide what goes into the protocol — only I do,” she told defense lawyer Anna Busl, setting a dynamic the defense team later said “undermined the core principles of a fair trial.” The legal team collectively left the courtroom and has since filed a recusal motion against the presiding judge.
When the trial continued after a two-hour-break, the defense lawyers took seats where their clients’had been sitting behind thick security glass in an act of protest against the separation. Schuster called this an attempt to push back against a trial setup that “needlessly obstructs the defense” and carries a “stigmatizing effect.” Lauchstädt gave them five minutes to move to their assigned seats, threatening to remove them from the case entirely. When they didn’t, the court adjourned the session.
Zimmermann, of Amnesty International Germany, described the trial’s influence as “extraordinarily far-reaching,” telling +972 that its precedent “risks placing legitimate civil society engagement in proximity to organized crime.” She added that the trial could have “significant chilling effects” within German society, potentially deterring people from exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly out of fear of these new prosecution norms.
The stated goal of the action against Elbit’s German subsidiary was to disrupt arms supplies sustaining Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Elbit is one of Israel’s largest defense contractors and counts the Israeli military among its primary clients, describing itself as the “backbone” of Israel’s drone fleet. Its products include systems widely used by Israel in Gaza, including Hermes surveillance and strike drones, quadcopters, and the SkyStriker suicide drone. In 2024, Elbit recorded revenues of $6.8bn.
The Ulm site itself used to be owned by the German radio and television producer Telefunken, which was acquired in 2004 by Tadiran, an Israeli defense electronics firm that was later integrated into Elbit — a lineage that reflects the long-standing integration of German electronics companies into Israeli military technology.
Shir Hever, an independent researcher specializing in the Israeli occupation, emphasized that two pieces of technology produced in Ulm — the software-defined radio (SDR) and laser targeting system — are particularly essential to Israel. The SDR forms the backbone of an internal communication network referred to as “blue force tracking” that updates military units about the whereabouts of others in real-time.
“It effectively turns the battlefield into a video game,” Hever told +972. Millions of hours of video, audio, and electromagnetic data feed into what is known as the “Alchemist” database — a central repository underpinning the Israeli military’s AI systems like Lavender and Gospel — which enables large-scale target generation in Gaza.
The laser targeting system, used by both the Israeli military and the German Bundeswehr, has dual uses. Offensively, it allows real-time target designation: “This gives soldiers the power to look around and with their eyes decide who they want to kill or what they want to destroy,” Hever explained. It is also used defensively to intercept threats, including from the CH-53 “Yas’ur” helicopter, which both countries use despite reports of their failure in combat.
Uncovered records further indicate that Elbit’s Ulm facility shipped military goods, including laser and radio systems, to Israel at least seven times in 2025 — both before and after the Palestine Action break-in. These shipments included components for systems used for “acquiring targets and engaging fire from long ranges,” as well as laser warning systems and military communications equipment.
‘Everything about this case is political’
From detention, the defendants have called for an investigation into Elbit Germany’s alleged complicity in war crimes and genocide in Gaza. Their lawyers assert that the activists acted with a legitimate goal: to prevent the ongoing genocide of Palestinians. Whether — and how — this motivation will be considered is likely to be a central point of contention at the trial.
Germany is Israel’s second-largest arms supplier after the United States and is itself in a phase of massive re-armament that further tightened its alignment with Israel. In 2023, Berlin agreed to purchase Israel’s Arrow 3 missile defense system for €3.6 billion, later expanded by an additional €3.1 billion — the largest arms deal in Israel’s history.
“Israel is Germany’s most important partner outside of NATO and the EU,” the Interior Ministry stated on the occasion of a new cybersecurity agreement between the two countries earlier this year. All of this comes despite mounting international condemnations — from courts, legal scholars, and human rights organizations — of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, the West Bank, and the wider region.
Unsurprisingly, German officials have united against the action on Elbit. Israel’s ambassador to Germany, Ron Prosor, strongly condemned it, arguing on X: “These attacks are terrorist acts – they must be clearly named and severely punished.” He added: “Antisemitism and terror must have no place in Germany.”
Several German politicians and media outlets echoed this line. Germany’s biggest newspaper, Bild, dubbed the group the “terrible five.” Martin Rivoir, a Social Democratic politician in Ulm, said during a solidarity visit to Elbit that the activists’ “violent actions are reminiscent of the worst antisemitic atrocities in German history.”
The indictment against the five — spanning 100 pages — barely engages with the political motivation of the action, namely, Israel’s German-backed destruction of Gaza. Instead, in addition to property damage and trespassing, it casts the defendants as belonging to a criminal organization driven by the aim of opposing Israel’s “alleged ‘genocide’” and denying its “right to exist.”
The term “existenzrecht,” meaning Israel’s right to exist, appears five times and is described as “clearly antisemitic” if rejected. Meanwhile, the word “genocide,” when used for Israel’s conduct, appears exclusively in scare quotes, framing it as an outlandish or unfounded claim.
Such framing runs throughout the indictment. It claims the defendants promote anti-Zionist views that “portray the aspirations of Jews (i.e. for their own state or its defense) as a colonialist project” and thereby “equate” the State of Israel with Judaism. How exactly such an equation is meant to occur is not further explained throughout the remaining pages, leaving the impression that the indictment itself performs this equation, rather than the activists.
“I honestly have no idea how a court, without hearing evidence from the defence, can make statements about the nature of an action and the motivation for it,” Mimi Tatlow-Golden, mother of Daniel Tatlow-Devally, told +972. “This seems absolutely bizarre and raises fundamental questions about the principle of innocence until proven guilty.”
The indictment also relies on assessments by the state-funded antisemitism watchdog group RIAS, whose methodology has faced sustained criticism in recent years for opaque research methods and a tendency to collapse the distinction between criticism of Israel and antisemitism. In fact, it even classified a speech by Jewish-Israeli historian Moshe Zimmermann as an antisemitic incident.
Further, the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is classified as a Hamas symbol and, by extension, as antisemitic. The indictment also labels graffiti reading “baby killer” and the term “intifada,” which were sprayed on a wall and chanted during the action, respectively, as antisemitic.
For Düsberg, the indictment’s repeated emphasis on Hamas, antisemitism, and slogans like “From the river to the sea” serves to delegitimize the defendants’ motives as such. “It’s about constructing a narrative in which their motivations can be dismissed entirely — where you no longer have to engage with questions of arms deliveries or political responsibilities.”
Finally, the indictment describes “Palestine Action Germany” as a group modelled on its UK counterpart, repeatedly invoking the UK ban despite it being declared unlawful by the British courts. “The underlying state classification does not constitute a reliable basis for assessments or conclusions in German criminal proceedings,” Zimmermann stated.
Michael O’Flaherty, the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, also explicitly warned against such blanket classifications in a recent report. In it, he urges German authorities to refrain from broad bans on slogans, symbols, or other expressions of solidarity with Palestine, and instead to clearly distinguish between protected political speech and actual antisemitism.
“Everything about this case is political,” Tatlow-Golden said.
‘The wrong people are in the dock’
Tatlow-Golden is concerned about the conditions under which Daniel — who uses they/them pronouns — is held. According to her, they are locked in a cell with frosted windows for 23 hours a day, limited to two 30-minute visits a month (in which they are not permitted to discuss the case), and the rest of the time have almost no human contact.
“I am unable to speak, write, or talk with Daniel about their motivations,” Tatlow-Golden said, describing them as “an incredibly principled person, whose work has focused on ecological and decolonial questions, and profoundly motivated by human rights.”
For the first months, visits had to take place behind a floor-to-ceiling glass partition — which she described as “effectively a glass box.” Only after sustained pressure, including from Irish parliamentarians Richard Boyd Barrett, Barry Ward, and Duncan Smith, was this restriction lifted. “Just to be able to put your arms around your child — I can’t tell you the difference it makes.”
Josey, Vi Kovarbasic’s partner whose full name has been omitted to protect her privacy, told +972 Magazine that the past few months have been “very destabilizing.”
“You spend hours on the phone just to book a visit and then travel 15 hours for a half-hour visit once a month,” she said. The prison services also confiscated letters written to them in languages other than German. “One time, they showed Vi 20 letters and said: ‘18 are partly in English, so you can’t have them.’ To show Vi that there are people who care for them, and then to withhold that — it’s just psychological torture.”
The defense’s strategy relies on what Düsberg describes as a “Nothilfe” (emergency) argument, referring to a doctrine in German criminal law under which otherwise illegal acts may be justified to prevent greater harm. “Our aim is to show that the wrong people are in the dock here,” Düsberg said. “Not those supplying weapons during an ongoing genocide — but those who tried to stop it.”
The argument rests on a causality the defense aims to establish in court: that Israel’s conduct in Gaza amounts to genocide, that Germany, through its continued arms exports, is complicit in genocide, and that Elbit Systems Germany, as a supplier to the Israeli military, plays a concrete role in enabling it.
Düsberg insists the Ulm case is an uncommonly straightforward application of the “Nothilfe” argument, which is commonly invoked by climate activists. “I have never seen a case that lends itself so clearly to this kind of argument,” he said.
The prosecution’s reliance on the charge of forming a criminal organization under Section 129 allows the case to be tried collectively. By framing the defendants as members of a criminal organization, prosecutors can seek sentences of up to five years, and justify the extension of pre-trial detention. “Without the Section 129 charge, none of this would be possible,” Düsberg reflected.
In other words, the ongoing trial reaches far beyond Ulm, testing whether acts of direct action — particularly those targeting Germany’s military-industrial complex — can be framed as legitimate intervention in the face of genocide, or are instead prosecuted as organized extremism.
Elbit Systems Germany did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Hanno Hauenstein is a Berlin-based independent journalist and author. His work has appeared in publications including The Guardian, The Intercept, and Berliner Zeitung
