After almost a year of trial, some suspected jewel thieves from the Green Vault are willing to cooperate. The remaining booty has already been returned – the clan members have to break their silence about the coup in order to receive a penalty discount.
Turnaround in the case of a burglary in the Green Vault Dresden: The process of stealing jewels from the Green Vault in Dresden is to end for five of the six accused with an agreement between the defense, the public prosecutor’s office and the chamber. Four of them agreed to a corresponding proposal by the court on Tuesday, the fifth wants to decide by the next day of the trial. The accused should receive a lower sentence for the return of most of the loot and confessions, as the presiding judge Andreas Ziegel said after a conversation with those involved.
At the trial today it became known how great the damage was caused by the crooks. They were so careless with the 113 million loot that some pieces of jewelry were literally destroyed, reports “Bild”. In addition, some parts were demolished during improper cleaning attempts to remove the traces, art expert Eche Begov said in court. The damage: 25 million euros.
The ceremonial sword made in 1789 was the most damaged. The sword was disassembled into nine pieces, the report said. The handle was also badly deformed. A stone and a diamond rose are missing. The art expert explains that a total of 26 diamonds and the blade were lost. Police divers have already looked for a clue from the Remmos lawyer in the Berlin Canal, but to no avail.
The “hat clip of the diamond rose set” was so roughly torn off the cushion in the display case during the theft that it tore into several pieces, according to the court. Because of water damage, the diamonds would now appear black, the art expert continued.
Many other pieces are also in poor condition, according to the “Bild” report. According to the team at the Staatliche Kunstsammlung Dresden (SDK), it is still completely unclear whether a restoration would make sense.
According to previous announcements, there are to be prison terms of between five years and nine months and six years and nine months for three suspects who are convicted under adult criminal law. The sentence for the others should be between four years and three months and five years according to juvenile criminal law.
On November 25, 2019, pieces of jewelery with a total of 4,300 diamonds and brilliants with a total value of over 113 million euros were stolen from the Green Vault. The slump made international headlines. Six young men are on trial for gang theft and serious arson, among other things. You are German and come from the well-known Arab-born Berlin Remmo clan. Shortly before Christmas, part of the loot reappeared after consultation between the defense and the public prosecutor’s office.
The initiative came from the oldest accused. The 29-year-old worked to ensure that the remaining loot was returned, said Ziegel at the beginning of the day of the hearing about the meetings with public prosecutors and/or the chamber.
However, the bundle of documents laid out in the West Berlin office of his defense attorney on December 17, 2022 was less extensive than expected and several pieces were incomplete. Some of them were damaged due to improper storage and cleaning attempts to remove traces. However, since the pieces brought by the accused clan members were less extensive than expected and several pieces were incomplete, the prospective penalty discount was corrected upwards.
According to Ziegel, a total prison sentence of between five and a half years and six and a half years for the adults at the time of the crime and between four and four and a half years for the adolescents at the time are now possible if juvenile criminal law is applied, as well as a release from prison after the verdict has been pronounced.
However, the prerequisite for this is that the accused declare themselves to be planning, preparing and participating in the crime, which also made international headlines.
Investigators from the Dresden special commission “Epaulette” – named after one of the prominent booty items – then drove to Berlin on the night of December 17, 2022. The pieces were lying on a table in the law firm’s conference room, and a detective who was there as a witness recalled that some of them were damaged.
In a later molecular genetic examination, mixed traces were found on the jewelry, but these could not be assigned to the accused. The official also said that police divers from several federal states then searched in vain in the Berlin shipping canal in the Neukölln district on December 25: the blade of the sword of the diamond rose set.
On Tuesday, a detective at the Dresden Regional Court reported that several cash boxes and safes were found during the search. Instead, they showed up with costume jewelry and bicycles, among other things. The canal is obviously used to dispose of all sorts of things there, the chief inspector suspected.
The diamond-studded hilt of the sword was severely damaged, said restorer Eve Begov from the Dresden State Art Collections (SKD). There are also deformities and fractures on other of the valuables that have been recovered, parts have been detached, stones are missing and there is moisture and rust between the setting and the stones. The experts assume that the pieces were treated after the burglary.
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The witness did not want to comment in detail on the processing of the damaged pieces. It’s about the question of how far you want to push a restoration, that has to be decided in the team. Deformations will be reversed so that the pieces can be presented again.
An exact estimate of the damage will only be possible during the course of the work. According to Begov, the cost of restoring the pieces was estimated at 126,800 euros. However, this sum does not include the missing stones.
In the trial, which has been ongoing since the end of January 2022, young men between the ages of 23 and 29 from a well-known large Berlin family of Arab origin are accused of serious gang theft, arson and particularly serious arson. Two of them are currently serving a youth sentence of several years for stealing the gold coin from the Bode Museum in Berlin in 2017.
During the spectacular art theft on November 25, 2019 in Dresden, two perpetrators broke into the Residenzschloss through a window that had been prepared unnoticed days earlier, punched holes in a display case with an ax and tore out whatever they could get their hands on. Beforehand, they set fire to a power box not far from the museum – and their getaway car in the underground car park of a residential building to cover up their tracks.
