Dubliner Daniel Tatlow-Devally had already spent 316 days on remand in Germany when two Irish parliamentarians paid a prison visit on Tuesday.

Sinn Féin TD Mairéad Farrell and Richard Boyd Barrett of People Before Profit-Solidarity then joined five other Irish politicians at Wednesday’s session of proceedings in Stuttgart against the 32-year-old and four other Berlin-based activists.

Tatlow-Devally and the four others – two Germans, one UK and one Spanish citizen – face charges of trespassing and causing an estimated €1 million in criminal damage to an Israeli-owned arms factory in Ulm, an hour from Stuttgart, on September 4th last.

The central facts are not in dispute: the five filmed and posted online clips of themselves smashing up the factory as part of a protest against the involvement of its ultimate owner, arms company Elbit Systems, in Israel’s Gaza war.

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Tatlow-Devally told the trial in May that “urgent humanitarian concerns” were the group’s motivation. By damaging production capacity in Germany, they hoped to “make a fuss ... in the hope to at least interrupt” its deliveries to Israel and thus further civilian casualties.

The defendants deny wrongdoing and challenge the proportionality of their treatment in the nearly 10 months since. Are they dangerous criminals, as the prosecutor claims – or, as their families see them, human rights defenders?

In the case of Tatlow-Devally, remand conditions include 23-hour solitary lock-up, highly limited visits and heavily screened........

© The Irish Times