I don't think Julian H's response that it was 'all pro bono' as being the answer to the question of who paid the legal fees over the years is entirely accurate. Some of it was, and latterly. But first of all, I feel certain that the German embassy/foreign office of the Federal Republic paid out extremely large legal fees in Britain in its successful campaign to save Soering's life at the extradition phase of the case. The European court at Strasbourg gave West Germany some of this money back when it won on the extradition legal concession that Bedford had to make, but I doubt this approached what was spent by the embassy and foreign office. Jens got absolutely first class legal support. That is why he is alive today.
Simultaneously, it was Jens's father who paid lawyer's fees up to and through the trial, and even some years after the 1990 sentencing and incarceration. Mr. Soering took better paid hardship duty in places like West Africa to continue to meet the continuing legal burden, as Jen has told us. Incidentally, I see Jens as being a merciless taskmaster, and there was going to be no end to it, which I think his family came finally to understand. I also think the family is utterly appalled to see what he is doing to a fine family name with a solid record of distinguished government service going back probably to the Nineteenth century. I also heard that an American woman who had been a college friend of Jens's mother when she was a young student in the US put up some money for a further appeal, at one point.
What I would find very interesting here about the comments wouldn't be the skeptics, but rather the believers. What are their reasons for believing in Jens Soering and accepting his story? If Soering got fifteen hundred supporters from this televised interview, a show that was responded to by some five thousand viewers (!) and seen by some 800,000 people...well, isn't that a good haul? He knows that he needs to keep doing this. It's working! He seems to be slowly putting together a base. This could be the foundation of a religious/spiritual group, a secular sodality that might have intellectual underpinnings and a design similar to Bandler and Grinder's NLP ('Neurolinguistic Programming'), which Jens was studying back in 1984-85. Incidentally, I suspect that Jens may have used NLP successfully before, as a prisoner. And he is using NLP right now in his public appearances. Some of it is, of course, his being raised to understand and employ good manners, given a solid upper middle-class background --but there is something more to it beyond this, and beyond the long-haul convict's knowledge and practice of manipulation. I think that this owes something to NLP.
I don't think Julian H's response that it was 'all pro bono' as being the answer to the question of who paid the legal fees over the years is entirely accurate. Some of it was, and latterly. But first of all, I feel certain that the German embassy/foreign office of the Federal Republic paid out extremely large legal fees in Britain in its successful campaign to save Soering's life at the extradition phase of the case. The European court at Strasbourg gave West Germany some of this money back when it won on the extradition legal concession that Bedford had to make, but I doubt this approached what was spent by the embassy and foreign office. Jens got absolutely first class legal support. That is why he is alive today.
Simultaneously, it was Jens's father who paid lawyer's fees up to and through the trial, and even some years after the 1990 sentencing and incarceration. Mr. Soering took better paid hardship duty in places like West Africa to continue to meet the continuing legal burden, as Jen has told us. Incidentally, I see Jens as being a merciless taskmaster, and there was going to be no end to it, which I think his family came finally to understand. I also think the family is utterly appalled to see what he is doing to a fine family name with a solid record of distinguished government service going back probably to the Nineteenth century. I also heard that an American woman who had been a college friend of Jens's mother when she was a young student in the US put up some money for a further appeal, at one point.
What I would find very interesting here about the comments wouldn't be the skeptics, but rather the believers. What are their reasons for believing in Jens Soering and accepting his story? If Soering got fifteen hundred supporters from this televised interview, a show that was responded to by some five thousand viewers (!) and seen by some 800,000 people...well, isn't that a good haul? He knows that he needs to keep doing this. It's working! He seems to be slowly putting together a base. This could be the foundation of a religious/spiritual group, a secular sodality that might have intellectual underpinnings and a design similar to Bandler and Grinder's NLP ('Neurolinguistic Programming'), which Jens was studying back in 1984-85. Incidentally, I suspect that Jens may have used NLP successfully before, as a prisoner. And he is using NLP right now in his public appearances. Some of it is, of course, his being raised to understand and employ good manners, given a solid upper middle-class background --but there is something more to it beyond this, and beyond the long-haul convict's knowledge and practice of manipulation. I think that this owes something to NLP.
Question: Is Jens winning?