I reported a few days ago on the case of Martin Sellner, the leader of Identitäre Bewegung Österreichs, which is the Austrian chapter of the Identitaire movement.
Mr. Sellner was persecuted by the government because Brenton Tarrant, the perpetrator of the mosque massacre in New Zealand, had donated to IBÖ a year before he carried out his attack. Last week the superior court in Graz ruled that the house searches carried out against Mr. Sellner were unjustified and had been conducted illegally.
In the following video, recorded just after the court handed down its decision, Mr. Sellner discusses his case, and outlines the actions the state should take now that he has been vindicated.
Many thanks to MissPiggy for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:
Video transcript:
00:00 | Hi, guys. Welcome to Martin Sellner Live. Heartfelt greetings from my resistance cellar. | |
00:05 | Now with better sound quality, I would like to summarise today’s joyful events, | |
00:10 | which you have certainly already heard about. | |
00:24 | I’m sure you’ve heard of the court case for suspicion of terror against the Identitarian Movement, | |
00:29 | against many activists, against my wife and against myself. | |
00:33 | It is now wonderfully collapsing in front of our eyes. | |
00:36 | I’ve just come back from a press conference and not even taken off my jacket. | |
00:40 | At the press conference I held there were many supporters, some good friends also some journalists | |
00:48 | who actually wanted to hear what I had to say in the Vino restaurant. | |
00:51 | Unfortunately, this local establishment, | |
00:54 | Vino, the same wine bar where Strache held his press conference, decided to cancel my reservation | |
01:00 | on very short notice. That’s why the press conference took place outdoors. | |
01:06 | The sound quality was so bad that I had to cancel the livestream | |
01:09 | of the press conference and switched the status | |
01:12 | to unlisted because I don’t want to offer such crappy audio on an excellent channel. | |
01:17 | You can find a link in the description if you want to see it, | |
01:20 | but I don’t want to offer it officially. | |
01:23 | So this is just a short video before we go live again, to summarise the important things. | |
01:28 | What happened? On the third of December, the superior regional court of Graz, the 9th department, | |
01:34 | made a very important decision about 9 coercive measures and the complaints our attorneys filed | |
01:43 | against them right away. I’ll insert them here in the video. It’s about nine individual complaints | |
01:47 | against investigations and coercive measures by the authorities | |
01:50 | during the course of these terror proceedings | |
01:53 | against the Identitarian Movement, against me and also others like Patrick Lehner who also | |
01:58 | recorded a livestream about it and reported on it. The actions that were taken are | |
02:03 | delightful things such as frozen bank accounts | |
02:06 | and the home raids and searches. The first one occurred on June 18, and the other | |
02:09 | on March 25. It also included around-the-clock surveillance of me, with a surveillance team | |
02:15 | parked in front of my apartment in a van. It’s about the investigations of several bank accounts | |
02:19 | which very often also led to a termination by the banks. | |
02:22 | And of course the surveillance of e-mail accounts, surveillance of my phones, | |
02:25 | and monitoring my location. This was all included in the formal complaints | |
02:30 | raised by our lawyer. Our great lawyer, Magister Bernhard Lehofer. This complaint was upheld. | |
02:36 | This is an extremely good sign, and really, | |
02:40 | it is absolutely a reason for us to rejoice and breathe a sigh of relief. | |
02:45 | The way in which the OLG [Superior Court] | |
02:49 | tore this whole litigation process apart in its response to our complaints is, | |
02:54 | of course, also great. For example, the court said that it was just speculation without | |
02:59 | any procedurally substantiated results. | |
03:02 | The OLG [Superior Court] also stated that the connection between | |
03:05 | Tarrant and my involvement with some undefined terrorist association could not be ascertained and | |
03:12 | that caused the entire argument of the prosecution to evaporate into the air. | |
03:16 | I will read the summary from the OLG | |
03:20 | of what I was accused of and the reason the international press | |
03:24 | presented me as the connection to Brenton Tarrant or as the friend of the terrorist, etc. | |
03:31 | I was suspected of joining with other unknown perpetrators in a terrorist organisation that | |
03:35 | was not specifically named, which was right-wing extremist, | |
03:39 | racist, Islamophobic and structurally fascist-oriented — | |
03:43 | and here it comes — by providing information, financial assets | |
03:48 | and knowingly providing ideological leadership. | |
03:52 | This was an attempt to connect me to, and have me charged with being involved with, | |
03:55 | the mass murder of 50 people. So I was being accused | |
03:58 | by the government of Austria of being a mass murderer. | |
04:02 | Or at least someone involved in a terrorist organisation who was complicit with killing | |
04:06 | innocent people by providing information, financial assets and ideological leadership. | |
04:10 | The absurd part of all of this is that | |
04:14 | Brenton Tarrant sent a donation to me a year before the attack. | |
04:18 | Many other people have talked about demographic change and about population exchange. | |
04:22 | They had a large selection for doing such raids. There’s Renaud Camus, Martin Lichtmess, Benoit and | |
04:26 | Thilo Sarrazin and many others. Thank God that the OLG [Superior Court] stated very clearly that | |
04:35 | Renaud Camus and Benoit also used that, and I quote, | |
04:39 | therefore, the first court as well as the prosecution | |
04:43 | prepared a draft injunction which now accepts more. The complainant has made this concept | |
04:47 | available to everyone, and as to whether he promoted it remains unsubstantiated. | |
04:54 | So through my videos about the population exchange, | |
04:58 | I provided information to an unspecified ominous | |
05:01 | obscure terrorist organisation that is active worldwide | |
05:05 | and that would therefore make me complicit in their actions. | |
05:09 | This completely Kafkaesque reasoning has now been torn to pieces by the OLG [Superior Court]. | |
05:15 | Now I will quote the consequences from the explanatory statement: According to the current state | |
05:19 | of the proceedings, there are no sufficient indications that Martin Sellner | |
05:23 | or Patrick Lehner might somehow have been suspected of terrorism, | |
05:26 | or of financial crimes that fell within the jurisdiction of the courts. | |
05:31 | So here as well, the OLG [Superior Court] makes it very clear | |
05:34 | that neither Patrick Lehner nor I are suspected of | |
05:37 | committing any financial crimes. So after everything I read | |
05:41 | in the press about the neo-Nazi assassin’s connections | |
05:44 | to the Identitarian leader or that I had a beer with the mass murderer | |
05:47 | or that the Identitarian Movement is guilty of tax evasion | |
05:50 | involving hundreds of thousands of euros and committed financial crimes. | |
05:53 | These were nothing more than crude and blatant lies. | |
05:56 | Also important was WHEN the OLG [Superior Court] made this ruling. | |
06:00 | I spoke with my lawyer very often about this, and asked several times | |
06:03 | why the decision was taking so long. I asked him if he knew approximately when | |
06:06 | it would happen and he told me that normally it should have been decided. | |
06:10 | Being that it wasn’t a “normal” case, | |
06:13 | this special case ruling wasn’t decided until after the entire scandal with the FPÖ was over, | |
06:23 | to cause maximum damage. At least that’s how it seems. | |
06:26 | After using this “guilt” of the IBÖ as easy target and Achilles’ heel | |
06:29 | for the FPÖ, after enough information was gathered from donor lists, | |
06:34 | and anything from juvenile police records to | |
06:39 | T-shirt purchases, and then releasing it publicly, | |
06:43 | and most importantly, after massively ruining my reputation worldwide. | |
06:48 | That certainly wasn’t restricted to the Austrian press alone. The Washington Post | |
06:52 | and several other newspapers reported extensively and savoured the moment | |
06:55 | when they could make the connection to Austria. | |
06:58 | So in this fashion the general public thinks, | |
07:02 | “Well, if the police are conducting raids, there must a reason for it, because | |
07:06 | the democratic government wouldn’t do something like that without cause and allow these raids.” | |
07:13 | Well, now the high court has just confirmed it: | |
07:16 | the raids that were carried out have been declared groundless. | |
07:19 | That of course raises the following question: What does this say about our government? | |
07:25 | This has already resulted in serious consequences, | |
07:28 | because I’ve lost my possibilities, my privileges, via ESTA [Electronic System for Travel Authorisation], | |
07:31 | to travel to the U.S.A. and Canada. I was refused entry | |
07:34 | to the United Kingdom. The wedding plans my wife and I | |
07:38 | had had to be married there were ruined. We have lost several bank | |
07:41 | accounts, and as collateral damage had to shut down | |
07:44 | a business that was doing well with two employees. | |
07:49 | My girlfriend, now my wife, was also put under suspicion | |
07:54 | of being a terrorist, and had her computer confiscated | |
07:57 | as well as her cell phone along with several other items | |
08:00 | that are still somewhere in some state evidence chamber. Along with the bank accounts being closed. | |
08:07 | With this good news, we will of course demand everything be returned. | |
08:11 | We will request an immediate suspension of these proceedings. | |
08:15 | Another reason I wanted to hold a press conference | |
08:18 | was to address the “Ibiza media” that had nothing better | |
08:22 | to do these last few months than to fan the flames | |
08:25 | against the FPÖ by inflating these absurd Kafka-esque | |
08:28 | court proceedings in a indiscriminate manner. | |
08:31 | They should restore my reputation and clearly quote and reflect | |
08:34 | the OLG [Superior Court] decision which states that these suspicions were unfounded. | |
08:38 | It should also be clearly stated that all these suspicion were | |
08:41 | just speculation, and that all coercive measures | |
08:44 | that were based on those suspicions were illegal. It was against the law, | |
08:47 | and these actions are to be reversed. Once again I will quote the OLG [Superior Court] ruling: | |
08:50 | All seized data (that’s my word, not the court’s), | |
08:55 | all confiscated data are to be destroyed and all objects are to be returned. | |
08:59 | This is a relief for the entire Identitarian Movement, | |
09:03 | for me, for my environment, my wife and for us. | |
09:06 | However, it is clear to me that it is only a provisional victory, | |
09:10 | because in any government, any country, in any legal system | |
09:13 | in which such coercive measures are possible at all, | |
09:16 | in which judges sign off and sanction any such measures at all, there are really | |
09:19 | quite substantial problems. I would like to take | |
09:22 | the opportunity now to express my special thanks to all of you who | |
09:25 | have remained faithful to me and the Identitarian Movement over the last months | |
09:31 | during this difficult period, because you were the actual target | |
09:35 | to leave the flag behind, and be afraid. Afraid to respond, | |
09:39 | to answer emails or to show up at protests, but you continued coming, | |
09:44 | and none of it had any effect on you. That’s exactly what scares the system the most. | |
09:50 | It is a day to celebrate. I will have a toast | |
09:54 | with Friedrich Langberg (FPÖ) later on Martin Sellner Live. | |
09:58 | Everyone, please share this video and massively share the good news, because it will help me | |
10:03 | restore my reputation, my wife’s reputation, the reputation | |
10:07 | of the Identitarian Movement. We aren’t terrorists. | |
10:10 | We aren’t terror suspects. The Austrian government has committed a great injustice against us and | |
10:14 | all measures taken against us were unlawful. | |
10:17 | We are simply peaceful patriots who, with complete legitimacy | |
10:20 | and necessity, criticize what the politicians are doing to us, which is population exchange. | |
10:26 | I’ll continue to say this peacefully until patriots in the country | |
10:29 | have a voice, and have secured a different political future. |