members of the RAF, Karl-Heinz Ruhland and Gerhard Müller, testified under BKA's orders, as revealed later. Their statements were often contradictory, something that was also commented on in the newspapers. Ruhland himself later reported to that his deposition was prepared in cooperation with police. Müller was reported to "break" during the third hunger strike in the winter of 1974–1975 which lasted 145 days. The prosecution offered him immunity for the murder of officer Norbert Schmidt in Hamburg (1971), and blamed Baader, Meinhof, Ensslin, and Raspe instead. He was eventually freed and relocated to the US after getting a new identity and 500,000 Deutschmarks. Lawyers' arrests The government hastily approved several special laws for use during the Stammheim trial. Lawyers were excluded from trial for the first time since 1945, after being accused of various inappropriate actions, such as helping to form criminal organizations (Section 129, Criminal Law). The authorities invaded and checked the lawyers' offices for possible incriminating material. Minister of Justice Hans-Jochen Vogel boasted that no other Western state had such extensive regulation to exclude defense attorneys from a trial. Klaus Croissant, Hans-Christian Ströbele, Kurt Groenewold, who had been working preparing for the trial for three years, were expelled the second day of the trial. On 23 June 1975, Croissant, Ströbele (who had already been expelled), and Mary Becker were arrested, and in the meantime police invaded several defense attorneys' offices and homes, seizing documents and files. Ströbele and Croissant were remanded and held for four and eight weeks respectively. Croissant had to pay 80,000 Deutschmarks and report weekly to a police station, and his transport and identity papers were seized. The defense lawyers and prisoners were not the only ones affected by measures adopted for the RAF trial. On 26 November 1974 an unprecedented mobilization by police and GSG-9 units arrested 23 suspected RAF members, invaded of dozens of homes, left-wing bookstores, and meeting places, and made arrests. No guerrillas were found. BKA's chief, Horst Herold stated that despite the fact that "large-scale operations usually don't bring practical results, the impression of the crowd is always a considerable advantage". On 16 February 1979 Croissant was arrested (on the accusation of supporting a criminal organization – section 129) after France denied his request for political asylum, and was sentenced to a prison term of two and half years to be served in Stammheim prison. Defense strategy The general approach