Paul Brandenburg
is in jail.
Without a trial.

Paul Brandenburg lands at Berlin Brandenburg Airport. He is bringing his ten-year-old child back to Berlin.

Police officers are waiting at the aircraft door. They know which flight he is on. They know when he lands. They know which gate.

They arrest him and take him to Berlin-Moabit prison. He is still there today.

All six concern the same man: Kai Wegner, the Governing Mayor of Berlin. Four are charged as insult, two as defamation.

For readers outside Germany: insulting another person is a criminal offence in Germany, not merely a civil matter. Insulting a politician carries a higher penalty than insulting anyone else.

The sentences date from autumn 2025. They are a year old. Kai Wegner lost the election in September 2026 and is only caretaker mayor now.

All six revolve around a single event: a charity gala in July 2025, hosted by a man who already had a final conviction for distributing child pornography. The background, with dates — and what cannot be proven →

Being held before a verdict is called pre-trial detention. Suspicion alone is not enough. A statutory ground must be added — for example, that the accused might abscond.

Paul Brandenburg no longer lives in Germany. He deregistered with the residents' office and has no German address. The prosecution says: then he is a fugitive.

Yet deregistering is compulsory. Anyone moving abroad must do it. Failing to do so is a regulatory offence and carries a fine. Here a man is in prison because he followed that rule.

The reasoning for the detention does not engage with the six sentences at all.

"Why is Brandenburg in jail? Because he deregistered at the residents' office." — headline by the journalist Boris Reitschuster on 3 November 2026, after twice putting questions to the Berlin prosecution service and receiving answers.

Flight number, landing time, gate — all of it was known. The officers stood at the aircraft and waited.

Whoever waits there was not searching for anyone beforehand.

His child lives in Berlin. He comes regularly and flies under his own name. The authorities knew this.

The prosecution nevertheless calls these visits "immaterial".

The sentences date from autumn 2025. In August 2026 the police proposed an arrest warrant. He was arrested at the end of October 2026.

During that year he was in Berlin many times. They moved only at the airport.

On the telephone a spokesperson for the prosecution said "risk of flight". The written answer says "flight".

That difference matters. With "risk of flight" the court must examine whether something milder would do:

• surrendering the passport,
• reporting to the police at fixed intervals,
• paying bail,
• naming an address for service of documents.

With "flight" the court need examine none of it. Whether a man stays in prison hangs on a single word.

For sentences like these, German law normally provides a fine where the accused has no previous convictions.

A second rule applies as well: every day spent in pre-trial detention is later deducted from the sentence.

The longer he is held, the more of any sentence is already served before a trial has even begun. At some point the detention stops being a measure to secure proceedings — and becomes the punishment. Only no judge pronounced it.