In the trial for the theft of jewels from the historic Green Vault Dresden, the defense of three of the accused considers lower penalties in the course of the so-called deal to be appropriate and criticized the behavior of the public prosecutor’s office after the agreement reached in advance. In their closing speeches on Tuesday at the Dresden district court, several lawyers explained that the client’s share of the investigation should be seen as a greater mitigating factor. Without them, no jewelry would have returned, said Berlin lawyer Kai Kempgens. And the fact that the museum’s security precautions “at least took into account” the execution of the crime must also play a role. “It didn’t match the value of what was stored there.”
For more than a year, six men between the ages of 24 and 29 have had to answer for the jewel theft. You come from a well-known Arab family in Berlin. Kempgen’s client, a 29-year-old who first declared himself in court early on, is to be sentenced to only five years and ten months in prison. For one of the two 24-year-old twin brothers, the defense pleaded for four years of youth imprisonment. The lawyers of a 26-year-old, who is still serving his youth sentence for stealing the gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum in 2017, demanded a maximum of five years and nine months as a total prison sentence and placement in a drug rehabilitation center. The prosecutor’s applications were for him and the 29-year-old to be sentenced to six years and eight months each and four and a half years to youth imprisonment for the 24-year-old.
Loot 21 pieces of jewelry made of diamonds and brilliants
Kempgens accused the public prosecutor’s office of gradually trying to “break away from the agreement and the understanding” from the moment the booty was returned, for example by asking questions aimed at third-party charges excluded in the deal. That put her and her client in danger. In addition, the conclusion of the proceedings was deliberately delayed again and again and the agreed acceleration was prevented by means of a release from detention.
That also contradicts the rules of juvenile criminal law, said Dresden criminal defense attorney Ines Kilian. The safety precautions are also “unworthy”. In addition, your client has long since served a third of the sentence, which means that the remainder of the sentence could be suspended. Kilian also addressed the separation from family and friends, especially during the corona pandemic. And her client had contacted her before he was arrested “to give himself up voluntarily” – the police had forestalled that.
The art theft from Saxony’s Treasury Museum on November 25, 2019 is considered one of the most spectacular in Germany. The perpetrators stole 21 pieces of jewelry made of diamonds and brilliants with a total value of over 113 million euros and caused more than one million euros in damage.
