Second hearing of NSU trial starts in Munich

Second hearing of the trial over killing of 10 people including 8 Turks between 2000-2007, blamed on the neo-Nazi "National Socialist Underground" (NSU), took start on Tuesday in the German city of Munich. Leading suspect Beate Zschaepe has come to the courtroom at 10.47 local time in Turkey. Zschaepe turned her back to the cameras as soon as she entered the hall. Before the trial took start, Zschaepe's lawyers had complained that the cameras were too close to them. At the hearing, the defense lawyers are expected to have some demands again. Talar T., one of the intervening party in the case, said he demanded the removal of the cross hung in the courtroom. Lawyer Adnan Menderes Erdal stated on the petition that the cross violated the freedom of religion of Talar T. and said with reference to the decision of the Constitutional Court of Germany that the German state and its institutuions had the obligation to be neutral towards religion. The court house was not as crowded as it had been on the first day of the trial, and police has taken strict security measures. A string of revelations about the NSU and its ties since November 2011, when the cell's existence first came to light after Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Bonhardt -- two of the three known members of the NSU who allegedly killed themselves following a failed bank robbery -- have sent shock waves through German politics, security bureaucracy and the Turkish community, and expectations have been raised that the trial will shed light on suspicions involving German state institutions.