Germany's 'Ulm 5' on trial in Stuttgart over Elbit Systems factory raid: charges, the glass-separator row, and what comes next

Five activists known internationally as the "Ulm 5" are on trial at the Stuttgart Regional Court, sitting at the high-security Stammheim complex in Baden-Württemberg, over a break-in at the German subsidiary of Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems in Ulm on September 8, 2025. The first hearing on April 27, 2026 was aborted within minutes after defence lawyers objected that a glass separator placed between defendants and counsel destroyed lawyer-client confidentiality, and the next two listed dates were cancelled. The next hearing is scheduled for Monday, May 11, 2026, with media interest building because of charges, conditions and political optics that observers from Amnesty International and the CAGE advocacy group have flagged as raising rule-of-law concerns.

What the activists are accused of doing

According to the indictment obtained by Al Jazeera and German media coverage, in the early morning of September 8, 2025 the five entered an Elbit Systems subsidiary office and factory complex in the southern German city of Ulm. They damaged computers, sanitation facilities and other office equipment, sprayed red paint and slogans on walls—including the phrase "baby killers"—and filmed themselves throughout the action. Once on-site security alerted police, the activists waited at the location to be arrested, did not resist, and did not attempt to hide their identities, according to defence statements.

Initial property damage estimates were around €200,000 (about $234,000); by the time of the trial opening, the figure cited in court papers had grown to more than €1 million (about $1.17 million). Elbit Systems declined to comment on the matter to Al Jazeera. No one was injured during the action; none of the defendants used violence against any person, and none have prior criminal records.

Who the Ulm 5 are

The five hold citizenship across four European countries. Daniel Tatlow-Devally, 32, is an Irish national who recently completed a master's degree in Berlin. Leandra Rollo, 40, is a Spanish national. Vi Kovarbasic, 29, is a German citizen. Zo Hailu and Crow Tricks, both 25, are British. They are not previously known to security services as serious offenders, and their lawyers say the political action was their first criminal-law incident.

All five have been held in separate prisons across Germany since their arrest, in conditions described by their defence teams and family members as severe. Tatlow-Devally's mother said in March that for five months he went without any physical contact with another person and that the conditions feel like torture. The prison authorities had at one point denied him access to books by authors including Nelson Mandela, a restriction a court later overturned. Pre-trial isolation has run up to 23 hours a day, with all phone calls and visits monitored, and supervised authorisation required for contact.

The charges in detail

The Office of the Chief Prosecutor of Stuttgart has charged the five with trespass, destruction of property, membership of a criminal organisation under Section 129 of the German Criminal Code (Strafgesetzbuch), and use of symbols of unconstitutional and terrorist organisations. Prosecutors are pushing for lengthy prison sentences and have asked the court to consider "anti-Semitic motivations and objectives" of the raid as an aggravating factor.

The symbol counts rest on contested interpretations. German courts have in some cases ruled that the slogan "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" can constitute a symbol of Hamas. The indictment also reads the use of "child murderer" and the number "48"—a reference to the 1948 boundaries that some pro-Palestinian activists treat as the line of legitimate Israeli territory—as anti-Semitic. The prosecutor's office told Al Jazeera it "assumes there is sufficient suspicion that the crime was motivated by anti-Semitic intent," while adding that an actual evidentiary assessment will follow once trial evidence is presented. The Baden-Württemberg Interior Ministry told the same outlet that the graffiti at the crime scene suggests a political motive, and cited the UK's earlier proscription of Palestine Action—without acknowledging that the British High Court ruled in February 2026 that the UK designation was disproportionate and unlawful.

Why Section 129 matters

Section 129 of the Strafgesetzbuch outlaws the formation and membership of criminal organisations. It carries political weight because of its history—rooted in earlier German criminal-law tradition predating the federal republic—and because in recent years prosecutors have used it against political and climate activists, including the climate group Last Generation. Advocacy organisations argue that applying a statute typically reserved for terrorists and organised crime to property-damage protests risks equating legitimate civic engagement with organised crime.

Paula Zimmermann, an expert on freedom of expression and assembly at Amnesty International Germany, told both Al Jazeera and DW that the use of Section 129 in the Ulm case raises "significant human rights and rule-of-law concerns," with "chilling effects" that prevent people from "exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly." The Stuttgart prosecutors counter that several courts—most recently the Higher Regional Court of Stuttgart—have already accepted the legal characterisation of "Palestine Action Germany" as a criminal organisation. Defence lawyers have told DW that prosecutors have not actually proved that "Palestine Action Germany" exists as a formal organisation rather than a loose campaign label.

The Stuttgart-Stammheim symbolism

The trial is being held at a high-security court at the Stammheim prison complex on the outskirts of Stuttgart. The choice is heavy with national memory. In the 1970s, members of the far-left Red Army Faction (RAF)—Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Jan-Carl Raspe and others—stood trial in the same complex, in one of the largest political trials in post-war German history. Defence lawyers and German press commentary view the choice of venue as carrying an implicit terrorism framing for the Ulm 5 before the bench has heard a single witness.

Critics argue that hosting an Elbit-linked property-damage case in a courtroom built for the RAF places the defendants on a symbolic spectrum that the underlying allegations do not support. The defence has been explicit: "That wasn't a court hearing, that was a show to make our clients look like terrorists," Mathes Breuer, attorney for Leandra Rollo, told DW. "This court isn't neutral." Whether that framing holds up in legal practice or simply influences press optics is one of the trial's open questions.

The glass-separator row and the recusal motion

The April 27 opening lasted only minutes in substantive terms before the dispute over courtroom seating took over. Defendants had been placed behind a glass separator that prevented direct lawyer-client communication. The 11 defence lawyers refused to take their seats, arguing that the configuration breached the European Convention on Human Rights guarantees on fair trial and on confidential access to counsel. Benjamin Dusberg, defence lawyer for Tatlow-Devally, called the original pretrial-detention order unlawful from the beginning because there was no real risk of flight. Breuer described having to shout over the glass to communicate with his client, with conversations potentially audible to the court.

After a two-hour break, the presiding judge adjourned the proceedings; the next two listed court dates were cancelled. The defence formally filed a motion for recusal against the presiding judge, citing the seating arrangement and the court's refusal to allow defence interventions on the record—microphones, the defence said, were not switched on, and unrecorded statements would not be translated and would simply "disappear." The May 11 sitting will, by procedural necessity, have to address how the seating, microphone use, defence access and recusal motion are resolved before substantive evidence can be heard.

Pretrial detention and conditions

The activists have been in pretrial detention since their arrest, now for over seven months, with the Higher Regional Court of Stuttgart extending custody beyond the standard six-month bar by citing a risk of flight that, in the court's view, could not be "sufficiently mitigated even by the posting of bail." The Stuttgart prosecutor told DW that no special conditions had been requested, and that the restrictions are the standard German criminal-procedure measures attached to a court-ordered pretrial detention.

Defence and family accounts paint a different picture: prolonged isolation, monitored telecommunications, restricted reading material and severely limited physical contact. A Higher Administrative Court ruling on prison conditions, obtained by Al Jazeera, suggests a sentence of more than two years is considered likely if convictions follow. The trial is currently scheduled to end in July 2026.

Elbit Systems and the German-Israeli arms relationship

Elbit Systems is Israel's largest private defence contractor. Reporting collated by Al Jazeera, citing Israeli industrial sources, indicates Elbit supplies roughly 85 percent of the combat drones and land-based equipment used by the Israeli army. The Ulm subsidiary, according to Elbit spokespeople quoted in German media, manufactures telecommunications parts for the German Bundeswehr. The defence disputes that limited framing: defence attorney Mathes Breuer told DW that the Ulm research is important for drone manufacturing and that the team has proof that there are parts from Ulm being delivered to Elbit facilities in Israel—technical components for tanks and drones.

Behind the courtroom dispute sits a larger political fact. Germany is the second-largest supplier of arms to Israel after the United States. Nicaragua has filed a case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Germany over its continued arms exports to Israel during the Gaza war. South Africa's separate genocide case at the same court, filed in December 2023, has been examining Israel's conduct in Gaza. The Ulm 5's defence will lean on these external proceedings to argue context.

Defence strategy: 'assistance in self-defence' against genocide

The defence intends to argue, on the merits, that the action was an "act of civil disobedience" aimed at stopping ongoing violations of international law, and that under German criminal-law theory the conduct can be characterised as "assistance in self-defence" for the population of Gaza in the face of what United Nations bodies and several rights organisations have described as genocidal conduct, allegations Israel rejects. Lawyers cite their clients' attempts—and frustration with the perceived failure—to hold the Israeli and German governments accountable through ordinary international and domestic legal routes.

Whether a German court accepts a Nothilfe (necessary aid) framework as a valid defence to property destruction in this configuration is highly uncertain; case law on protest-driven property damage has narrowed in recent years. Even if the legal argument fails, the defence aims to use the courtroom to put Elbit's Ulm-to-Israel supply chain, Bundeswehr procurement, and arms-export policy directly into the evidentiary record—turning the trial into a slow-motion audit of Germany's posture on Gaza.

What observers and supporters say

Anas Mustapha, head of public advocacy at CAGE, told the press the case is part of "a coordinated crackdown across Western states on those who refuse to be bystanders to genocide," citing "terrorism-adjacent laws, punishing pre-trial conditions, a judiciary that signals its verdict before the trial begins, and politicians who intervene to ensure it does." Amnesty International has stopped short of politicising the underlying action but has flagged Section 129 misuse and prison conditions.

Family members and partners reject the flight risk characterisation. Josie, partner of defendant Vi Kovarbasic, told DW that "these are five activists who took this action only targeting physical property" and that they "do not deserve to be in a glass separator." Berlin-based academic, work and study commitments, defence lawyers say, weaken any genuine flight-risk argument that might otherwise justify the prolonged isolation.

What to watch on May 11 and beyond

Three concrete signals will tell readers whether the trial settles into a workable process or stays mired in pre-procedural fights. First, whether the glass separator seating is modified for the May 11 hearing, and whether the recusal motion against the presiding judge is granted or rejected on the merits. Second, whether the defence is permitted to introduce evidence on Elbit-Ulm-to-Israel supply chains, German arms-export policy, and the South Africa-ICJ and Nicaragua-ICJ filings as contextual material relevant to the Section 129 and anti-Semitic motivation charges.

Third, whether the detention conditions are softened—reduced isolation hours, restored reading-material access, expanded family contact—now that the trial has formally begun. The court is currently scheduled to conclude the proceeding in July 2026, with the Higher Administrative Court suggesting a possible sentence of more than two years if the prosecution prevails on the major counts. A conviction on the "criminal organisation" count, in particular, would set a precedent for how Section 129 is applied to property-damage protest in Germany.

Bottom line

The Ulm 5 trial is, technically, about a single early-morning break-in at a single arms factory. In substance it is a stress test of German criminal-procedure norms—pretrial detention beyond six months, glass separators in court, Section 129 classification of a campaign label as an organised criminal group—and of how the country's foreign-policy posture toward Israel and Gaza intersects with its handling of domestic dissent. Amnesty International has flagged rule-of-law concerns; the defence has filed for the presiding judge's recusal; the next hearing on May 11 must address all of this before substantive evidence is even heard. Germany's reputation for procedural punctiliousness will be measured here, in real time, against allegations that the bench is running a show trial in the same building where the RAF were once judged.