Around four years after the arson attack on the Turkish restaurant “Mangal” in Chemnitz, the regional court sentenced the landlord to eight years in prison. The judges found the 50-year-old guilty on Tuesday, among other things, of 15 attempted murders and fraud. Accordingly, he not only commissioned the attack, but also left a window open so that the previously unknown perpetrators could enter the bar on the night of October 18, said court spokeswoman Marika Lang. Therefore, according to the conviction of the court, he was more than just a client. At the time, 15 people were sleeping in apartments above the restaurant, and no one was seriously injured.
The case caused a stir across the city. At that time, Chemnitz was in the headlines because of riots by right-wing extremists from all over Germany, and there had been attacks on a Jewish and two Persian restaurants in the city. In the case of “Mangal”, the investigators did not rule out a racist background. The innkeeper himself had persistently claimed that the perpetrators were to be found among right-wing extremists. He also denied the allegations in court through his lawyer.
However, the judges saw a different picture in the process. For this purpose, the events since the beginning of February have been processed over 27 days of negotiations, 120 witnesses have been questioned and more than half a dozen experts heard. As a result, the judges saw it as proven that the Turkish-born restaurant operator acted out of greed in order to collect a large sum insured. He received 300,000 euros from an insurance company, it said. The court ordered the amount to be confiscated, minus a sum paid to a waste disposal company.
According to the court, the public prosecutor and the joint prosecutor had demanded a prison sentence of ten years, the defense pleaded for acquittal. The verdict is not yet legally binding; an appeal can be lodged within one week.
