2023-12-20 18:01:09
In the trial against the former Reemtsma kidnapper Thomas Drach in Cologne, the public prosecutor’s office demanded 15 years in prison and preventive detention for the defendant. The 63-year-old’s defense lawyers, however, pleaded for acquittal on Wednesday. In the trial, which has been running at the Cologne regional court since February 2022, Drach is accused of several robberies. After the pleas on Wednesday, the verdict could soon come down. Drach himself denies having anything to do with the crimes.
The public prosecutor’s office assumed that the 63-year-old was guilty of aggravated robbery and attempted murder. On the 99th day of the trial, she viewed it as “proven beyond a doubt” that Drach had robbed three cash-in-transit vehicles in 2018 and 2019 in front of Ikea stores in Cologne and Frankfurt am Main and at Cologne/Bonn Airport. Drach also shot at money messengers in two incidents and seriously injured them. Because he acted out of greed, it should be considered attempted murder, said the prosecutor. In total, the 63-year-old stole almost 142,000 euros in the three crimes.
Circumstantial evidence points “like an arrow at the accused Drach”
Ultimately, it should be noted that “the evidence points like an arrow to the defendant Drach,” it said in the plea. The prosecutor referred, among other things, to a DNA trace from Drach on a license plate holder of a getaway vehicle, to connections between the 63-year-old and certain vehicles in connection with the crimes, and to the statement of a former fellow prisoner. During the trial, he stated that Drach had admitted three of the four robberies to him while in custody. The prosecutor described the witness as “absolutely credible”. In conjunction with the evaluation of video recordings from surveillance cameras at the crime scenes, a well-rounded overall picture emerges, according to the prosecutor.
However, the prosecution was unable to provide any proof of the crime for a robbery of a valuables transport in Limburg, Hesse, which Drach was also accused of. She applied for acquittal for this crime.
The public prosecutor’s office also requests preventive detention
In addition to the prison sentence, the public prosecutor also requested preventive detention for the German. After serving his prison sentence, Drach would be transferred to the penal system. He would continue to sit behind bars there. Against the background of Drach’s numerous previous convictions – including the kidnapping of the heir to the Hamburg tobacco dynasty, Jan Philipp Reemtsma, in 1996 – the public prosecutor said: “From an early age, crime has been his only strategy for making money and a life of luxury respectively.”
Drach’s defense attorneys, however, pleaded for acquittal. “Mr. Drach may be a suspect in the prosecution,” said a defense attorney. But that is not enough for a conviction. Drach was not recognized at any of the crime scenes or identified by witnesses. “Nobody said: There he is, Thomas, the Reemtsma kidnapper,” said the defense attorney. The defense attorney accused Drach’s former inmate in custody, cited by the public prosecutor, of lying. The man accused Drach in order to get a lenient sentence in his own trial at another regional court. “The defendant has objectively not been convicted here,” the lawyer continued.
Reiner Burger, Düsseldorf Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 14 Reiner Burger, Cologne Published/Updated: Recommendations: 16 Reiner Burger, Cologne Published/Updated: Recommendations: 3
On the previous day of the trial, Drach surprisingly demanded that his two defense lawyers be released from their duties. Among other things, he accused a defense attorney of allowing himself to be bought by a senior public prosecutor. The application for discharge had been rejected by the court as unfounded before the pleadings.
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