The trial over the attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September 2022 has begun in Hamburg. Ukrainian ex-officer Serhii K. has been charged with leading a group of divers who blew up three of the four gas pipelines that run between Russia and Germany. The public prosecutor’s office classifies such acts as a war crime against civilian infrastructure.
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Law must apply no matter how inconvenient
Handelsblatt hopes that politics will be kept out of the proceedings:
“In the courtroom, justice takes precedence over reasons of state. Even if the defendant was fighting for the right cause and people can understand and sympathise with his motivation, Lady Justice must remain blind to such considerations. The same applies the other way round: the judges must not allow themselves to be swayed by those who interpret the attack as an act of aggression against German sovereignty. … If the judges concentrate on the purely legal questions, give Serhii K. a fair trial and reach a clear and well-reasoned verdict, they could prove something very fundamental: that the law in Germany applies even when it is politically inconvenient for many.”
Who knew what and how?
The fundamental question for Germany is who knew about the act of sabotage, writes Adevărul:
“Who knew what – and who did or did not pass on that information, in what form and at what level within the military, the security services and the political hierarchy. … And perhaps the most difficult but also most obvious question is whether the highest political decision-makers – the German chancellor and President Zelensky in Ukraine – were informed at any point, if only verbally, and asked to approve the operation, which is now being described as the most significant act of sabotage since the end of the Second World War.”