When five pro-Palestine activists were arrested over an alleged break-in at an Israeli-owned weapons factory in southern Germany, prosecutors did not treat the case as an act of political protest or even simply as trespass and property damage. Instead, in an echo of the increasingly draconian approach taken against Palestine Action in the UK , the German state escalated it into a criminal organisation case, deploying one of its most far-reaching legal tools against the group now known as the Ulm Five.
Since September, Daniel Tatlow-Devally, Vi Kovarbasic, Crow Tricks, Zo Hailu and Leandra Rollo have been held in pre-trial detention, scattered across different prisons and brought before a high-security court in Stuttgart. They are accused of damaging property at an Elbit Systems site in Ulm, a factory owned by Israel’s largest arms manufacturer, and of belonging to Palestine Action Germany, a direct-action movement that says it targets companies profiting from Israel’s war on Gaza.
No one was injured in the alleged action. Yet by charging the five under Section 129, Germany’s organised crime law, prosecutors have opened the door to sweeping surveillance powers, prolonged detention and prison conditions that supporters and rights groups say are grossly disproportionate.
Behind the legal architecture are five people who have now spent nearly 10 months in prison before any conviction. For some, that has meant months of near-total isolation, restricted visits, no phone calls and a slow severing of the everyday intimacies that make a life bearable.
“I miss being able to call them and just catch up and just hearing their voice,” Clara Tatlow-Devally told The New Arab over video call.
"I miss being able to call them and just catch up and just hearing their voice," Clara Tatlow-Devally explains over a video call. Over the past number of months, Clara’s life has been a blur of media interviews, campaigning politicians and travelling to Germany on short notice to sit in a court and look on as prosecutors accuse her brother of being a member of a criminal organisation , amongst other charges. Daniel, 32, is part of a group dubbed the ‘Ulm Five’, accused of breaking into an Israeli weapons factory in Ulm, Germany, and allegedly destroying hundreds of thousands of euros' worth of property. The five are also accused of being part of Palestine Action Germany , a direct-action non-violent pro-Palestinian movement. Daniel, as well as Vi Kovarbasic, Crow Tricks, Zo Hailu and Leandra Rollo, from Ireland, Germany, the UK and Spain, are currently being tried in a high-security court in Stuttgart. The five have been in pre-trial detention since their arrest in September, all in different prisons where the conditions vary widely. For Daniel, the conditions are stark.
They are kept in solitary confinement 23 hours per day. Meals are eaten in the cell, and visits are limited to 30 minutes per person. Daniel is not allowed to take phone calls. Clara has seen her brother just four times in the past nine months. Each visit Daniel is allowed must be divided between family members and their girlfriend. "I don't get to hear their voice a lot," Clara continued. "I'm not able to go for every single visit, so it's just every couple of months when I'm able to make it. I miss being in their presence and the way that they speak and...that's the person that I've known my whole life - my big brother."
She added: "It's just so weird to feel that it's kind of like this loss, but it's something that's been like very intentionally taken away... Daniel shouldn't be in prison."
In September, a video of a break-in at the factory was posted to an Instagram page with the handle "Palestine Action Germany".
The caption says that Palestine Action Germany broke into an Israeli weapons factory in Ulm to "dismantle the tools used to commit genocide in Gaza ".
No one was injured during the incident. Genocide is profitable The factory in question is owned by Israel's largest weapons producer, Elbit Systems . As the trial continues, Elbit Systems continues to see profits soar. According to its website , the Israeli weapons manufacturer generated $7.9 billion in revenue in 2025. In its full-year results report, published in March, President and CEO Machlis Bezhalel marvelled that the company was reporting "excellent financial results," adding that revenues in 2025 had grown by 16%. In May, while hearings for the Ulm Five continued, The Ditch found that Elbit Systems sent a laser system to Israel "used for marking human targets".
"I feel kind of scared," Clara said about the ongoing trial. "It's like the power of the state and the power of like a systemic approach to Palestine that is criminalising."
She added: "There's no other reason why these people are being called criminals other than that the word like that they're standing up for Palestinian lives."
"That's very obvious to me in how all of this is going forward. I mean, in terms of like Daniel as a person, like being called a criminal and that being taken as truth is just, it's totally surreal."
If convicted, Daniel, along with the others, could spend up to five years in prison. "It's just bizarre as someone who knows Daniel. It makes how unjust and how wrong this whole system is very, very clear," Clara said. "Daniel is anything but [a criminal]. They're so sweet, and they're so smart. They're so curious about the world, and they're incredibly proactive and incredibly thoughtful."
"It's just very, very clear that there's no sense of actually looking at this person and seeing who they are and taking that into account."
Amnesty International Germany told The New Arab that it had been following the proceedings closely and had been keeping in contact with the legal team of the Ulm Five. "We have been deeply concerned,” Yasmin Khuder, a Policy and Legal Advisor on issues of climate justice and Business and Human Rights at Amnesty International Germany, said about the proceedings. "It appears to us that this case combines extremely restrictive pretrial detention with the use of organised crime legislation against what is essentially a politically motivated direct action against Elbit Systems ."
"They’re 23 hours away from human interaction" at any one time, Clara said about her brother's detention. "I can only imagine what that does to your body or your brain."
She added: "We were all quite worried in the winter when it had been four or five months [in prison] because all of our visits were taking place where Daniel was behind a barrier, like a glass wall, and we weren't allowed to touch, and that was obviously an added element of depersonalisation, alienation and isolation."
"We also heard that there were attempted suicides in the prison. One of them was successful." 'Chilling effect' "It's been quite a whirlwind," Josie, partner of Vi, the only German citizen in the Ulm Five, described the past few months. "I am still grieving daily the loss of connection to someone with whom I'm intimately close, someone part of my emotional support network." She added: "And on top of that, doing a lot of administrative and communicative and media-related work to advocate for the five whose fundamental human rights are being denied both in the courtroom and in the prisons where they're being held."
Vi met Josie less than a year before through the ranks of the pro-Palestine movement . Josie, a US citizen, has been living in Berlin for nearly two decades. Both Vi and Josie had been working in the arts before the administration slashed funding for social projects, including homeless shelters, women's shelters, and LGBTQ youth centres, Josie explains.
"The Berlin administration also slashed budgets for culture. So that was something we were both personally affected by," Josie said. "We were both feeling the economic impact of Germany deciding these things are not important and that the police and the military are more worth funding."
As Vi is not allowed to take calls, Josie has made the more-than-14-hour one-way journey for a 30-minute in-person visit five times since November. They last spoke at the end of April. "They're not doing well," Josie said of Vi’s condition. "To know that they're confined to a cell is just sickening to me."
Josie said that, with the psychological stress of the repression of movement and freedom and the poor nutrition, Vi has lost 10 kilogrammes since September. Before going to prison, Vi was very lean and fit as a dancer, Josie explained. "I wouldn't have said they had 10 kilograms to spare."
She added, "This is all brutal, inhumane conditions, but we know that it's actually nothing compared to what Palestinians are facing in Zionist prisons . There are over 10,000 political prisoners who, some of them don't even have proper charges, and Israel is holding them and torturing them. So we are also keeping things in perspective.” The trial of the Ulm Five began on 27 April, and on 18 May, additional dates were set, extending the trial until the beginning of 2027.
Josie recalled seeing the activists in court on the first day of trial in April. "It was still quite a surreal thing to behold. It was a contrast, like, wow, they are being treated as objects and [I was thinking] this is really a show trial."
All five are being charged under Section 129, which concerns membership of a criminal organisation, allowing the courts to keep them in pretrial detention. Khuder, from Amnesty, called the Section 129 charge a misuse, stating that "it's quite unlikely that these same conditions could be justified for the crimes of trespassing and property damage, even regardless of the value of the property, if you take out this political context".
According to Nina Oner, a lawyer representing Zo Hailu, the charge is extreme. "Sadly, it doesn't come as such a surprise," she said. "This is an extremely broad offence which basically has a tradition as being used to render a particular political position - one unpopular with the current government - illegal."
Oner went on to say that the charge has created a "chilling effect," meaning that it hinders activists from speaking out or organising , whilst at the same time permitting the investigative authorities [to take] very extensive covert investigative measures" such as monitoring electronic communications, the use of undercover agents and surveillance. "This is the most extensive covert investigative measures known in our criminal procedure. And this is a political tool."
Josie said that the trial is "ultimately about property damage and specifically property that is being used to kill civilians and children" and that the Section 129 charge "allows lots of more repressive conditions and also surveillance, not just on the five, but on anyone whom the police dubs a suspect".
It has been almost 10 months since all five of the activists were detained.
"Vi is so much missed by their community,” Josie said. “They have so many friends and comrades who love them and miss them. But we also understand that, from everything we can see from the outside, they made this risk, they made this sacrifice for a greater good. And so Vi has our full solidarity."
"We look forward to hugging them and protesting with them when they're free again."