Pro-Palestine activists face trial for attack on Israeli arms factory in Germany

The Ulm 5 protest group have been in pre-trial detention since being arrested last September.View image in fullscreenThe Ulm 5 protest group have been in pre-trial detention since being arrested last September.GermanyPro-Palestine activists face trial for attack on Israeli arms factory in GermanyFamilies say ‘Ulm 5’ have been detained under extreme prison conditions since arrest last SeptemberKate Connolly in BerlinMon 27 Apr 2026 00.00 EDTLast modified on Mon 27 Apr 2026 00.01 EDTSharePrefer the Guardian on GoogleFive pro-Palestinian activists are due to appear in court over an attack on an Israeli arms company in Germany, in proceedings their families say could become a “show trial”.The Berlin-based activists, who are British, Irish, German and Spanish citizens, have been held in pre-trial detention in separate prisons since 8 September. They are alleged to have broken into Elbit Systems, in the city of Ulm in Baden-Württemberg, in the early hours of 8 September, causing hundreds of thousands of euros of damage before calling the police to arrest them.The Ulm 5 have been charged with trespass, destruction of property and participation in a criminal organisation under section 129 of the German criminal code. The trial is due to start on Monday.The section 129 charge means authorities consider the accused a threat to society, allowing them to deny bail. Families of the defendants say they have been locked up for up to 23 hours a day and had access to visits, books, phone calls and mail restricted. If found guilty, they face up to five years in prison.View image in fullscreenA protest camp outside the Elbit Systems factory targeted by the five activists in Ulm, Germany. Photograph: Dpa Picture Alliance/AlamySpeaking on behalf of all the defendants, Benjamin Düsberg, a lawyer for Daniel Tatlow-Devally, 32, from Dublin, said he believed the German state was trying to make an example of the five, none of whom has a previous conviction.The attack on the weapons factory was an action in “defence of others” in trying to obstruct the movement of arms to Israel, he said.Düsberg, one of eight defence lawyers, said: “We intend to use the proceedings to essentially turn the tables. We want to show that it’s not our clients who should be on the hook, but rather the Elbit bosses, who continued delivering weapons even during the genocide.”Elbit Systems is the most important land-based weapons supplier to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). It has been approached for comment on the trial.Referring to section 32 of the German criminal code, Düsberg said: “Our central argument will be that the actions of our clients there – namely the destruction of laboratory equipment and office equipment – were justified under the grounds of emergency assistance.”Under this clause, an otherwise unlawful act can be justified if there is no other way to avert imminent harm or attack, he said.View image in fullscreenThe mother of Daniel Tatlow-Devally, a philosophy graduate, said the five posed no harm to the public.Germany is the second biggest supplier of arms to Israel, after the US. The defence team will argue that as soon as the international court of justice ruled in 2024 that the claim of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza was “plausible”, Berlin should have stopped all deliveries. Israel rejected the ICJ accusation as “outrageous and false”.View image in fullscreenZo Hailu, a British citizen, was strip-searched on arrival at a prison in Bühl.According to…

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