More than seven years after a spectacular raid on the “Artemis” brothel and a subsequent legal dispute between the operators and the state of Berlin, both parties have reached a settlement. As the Senate Justice Administration announced on Friday, the state will pay 250,000 euros to the operators. In addition, the Berlin Senate apologized for statements made by the public prosecutor at the time.
According to the information, the two parties concluded the comparison of two procedures on Tuesday before the Court of Appeal. It was only in December that the country had been sentenced to pay 100,000 euros in damages in an appeal process. The brothel bosses had accused the public prosecutor of having made prejudiced statements at a press conference on the occasion of the raid.
They then sued the country. The district court dismissed the action, but the superior court as the second instance agreed with them. In a second trial, the “Artemis” bosses had demanded “considerably higher amounts,” according to the judiciary. With the comparison, however, the process is now “overall completed”.
“The state of Berlin regrets the detention suffered by the operators and four employees of the Artemis in 2016, as well as the statements made by representatives of the Berlin public prosecutor’s office at the time,” says the statement belonging to the comparison, among other things.
Seven years “after this unprecedented breach of the law”, the state is finally showing its willingness to distance itself unequivocally from the serious violations of official duties, explained the operator’s lawyer, Margarete Countess von Galen, about the closed settlement. That is “a good signal to restore confidence in the rule of law”. According to their own statements, the operators want to use the 250,000 euros to first compensate the employees for the detention they have suffered and donate the rest to charitable purposes.
The raid on “Artemis” took place in April 2016 and was one of the most spectacular in Berlin’s red light district. Hundreds of officers were involved in the search at the time, and other properties were searched in the capital as well as in Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Hesse.
The public prosecutor’s office expressed the suspicion that members of the Hells Angels biker gang brought prostitutes to the brothel. However, she later dropped the investigation against the “Artemis” operators on suspicion of exploiting prostitutes, pimping and aiding and abetting human trafficking. Allegations of tax evasion, among other things, later collapsed.
