Edith Lunnebach
{{short description|German lawyer}}
{{Lead too short|date=September 2020}}
{{use dmy dates|date=September 2020}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Edith Lunnebach
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| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1950}}
| birth_place = Köln-Ehrenfeld, West Germany
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| nationality = German
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| occupation = Lawyer
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Edith Lunnebach (born 1950, Köln-Ehrenfeld) is a German lawyer who has represented clients in German high profile cases such as in the Kurdish trial in Düsseldorf and NSU Trial.
Education and early life
She graduated in Law in Stuttgart, Baden Württemberg in 1976, following which she worked as a jurist at the {{Interlanguage link|Deutscher Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband|lt=German Parity Welfare Association|de||WD=}} in Wuppertal until 1978.
In 1978 she obtained her certificate as an independent lawyer, also in Wuppertal. She moved to Cologne in 1979, and opened her lawyers office there.{{Cite web|title=BIOGRAFISCHES : RAin Edith Lunnebach|url=http://www.lunnebach.de/ratonline/biographisches.htm|access-date=2020-09-05|website=www.lunnebach.de}}
Notable trials
She defended {{Interlanguage link|Ingrid Strobl|lt=Ingrid Strobl|de||WD=}}, a former editor of the feminist magazine EMMA, who was accused of having bought the clock which was used during the bombing of the Lufthansa office in Cologne by the Revolutionary Cells in 1986.{{Cite web |date=21 February 1988 |title=FAHNDUNG : Gottverdammter Zufall |url=https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13528747.html |access-date=2020-09-05 |website=www.spiegel.de}} During the trial, Lunnebach argued that the court could not prove that Strobl knew that the clock was going to be used in the bombing. Strobl was sentenced to five years imprisonment and released from prison in 1990.{{Cite web |date=20 May 1990 |title=Strafrecht : Erst mal wegschließen |url=https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13499807.html |access-date=2020-09-05 |website=Der Spiegel}}
She was a lawyer in the so called Kurdish Trial in Düsseldorf, a large trial against members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which lasted from 1989 to 7 March 1994, costed about 70 Mio. DM. (35 Mio. Euros) and almost 200 witnesses were called to testify.{{Cite web|date=2004-03-06|title=07. März 2004 - Vor 10 Jahren: Urteil im Düsseldorfer Kurdenprozess|url=https://www1.wdr.de/stichtag/stichtag790.html|access-date=2020-09-05|website=www1.wdr.de|language=de}} It was an exceptional trial for which the main hall was amplified in order to provide enough room for the expected seventy participants amongst prosecutors and lawyers of the defense and also for the translators needed for the trial.{{Cite web |date=9 September 1989 |title=JUSTIZ : Yok etme |url=https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13493640.html |access-date=2020-09-05 |website=www.spiegel.de}} During the trial in Düsseldorf she was prosecuted for offending the presiding Judge Jörg Winfried Belker, but acquitted by a court in Cologne.{{Cite web |last=Mauz |first=Gerhard |date=20 December 1992 |title="Sie machen sich ja lächerlich" - DER SPIEGEL 52/1992 |url=https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13682758.html |access-date=2020-09-05 |website=Der Spiegel}} She was again prosecuted and also fined for allegedly saying in court "And you are our Stasi". She appealed against the fine and was acquitted due to the invalidity of the courts protocol as evidence. It was the first time that a lawyer of the defense was prosecuted for an event happening in court, which was seen as an attempt to intimidate the lawyers of the defense by the prosecution.{{Cite news|title="Es war Krach im Gerichtssaal" - DER SPIEGEL 7/1991|url=https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13488262.html|access-date=2020-09-05|newspaper=Der Spiegel|date=10 February 1991 |last1=Mauz |first1=Gerhard }} In 1991 she quit the defense at the Kurdish Trial in Düsseldorf as her client disappeared.
She was also the lawyer of the National Socialist Underground (NSU) victims of the arson attack in Cologne in 2001 during the NSU Trial.{{Cite web |last=Kleffer |first=Heike |date=17 October 2018 |title=Brennender Hass |url=https://www.zeit.de/zustimmung?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zeit.de%2Fgesellschaft%2Fzeitgeschehen%2F2018-10%2Fgewalt-roma-rassismus-antiziganismus-brandanschlag-koeln-gremberg-1994%2Fseite-2 |access-date=2020-09-05 |website=Die Zeit}} During the trial, she criticized the state prosecution for obstructing the investigation of the NSU network and that it only viewed the NSU as a cell of three people.{{Cite web|last=Germany|first=Abendzeitung|date=2017-11-15|title=NSU-Prozess: Nebenkläger-Plädoyers beginnen mit Attacke auf die Bundesanwaltschaft|url=https://www.abendzeitung-muenchen.de/muenchen/nsu-prozess-nebenklaeger-plaedoyers-beginnen-mit-attacke-auf-die-bundesanwaltschaft-art-422042|access-date=2020-09-05|website=www.abendzeitung-muenchen.de}}