As of: January 22, 2024, 1:21 p.m
By: Isabel Winklbauer
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Operation at Trudering train station - here the refugees were supposed to get out over the roof of the wagon.
© Jens Hartmann
Finally in Munich: For a group of refugees, the goal was within reach.
But the journey, hidden in a freight car, ended in Trudering with sadness and horror.
While getting out, a man and a girl were fatally electrocuted.
Now the trial against the smuggler begins.
It doesn't have to be about life-threatening boat trips on the Mediterranean when talking about brutal smugglers.
The business of suffering is also flourishing here in Munich.
This is shown by a trial against an Iraqi (45) that recently began in the regional court.
Hussein Mohammed H., together with at least ten other people, is said to have illegally brought around 600 Turkish Kurds from Verona and Switzerland to Munich over the years.
A 15-year-old died during one of the freight train tours: Melike A., like another passenger, suffered an electric shock on the overhead line of the train when they got out of their hiding place - the semi-trailer of a truck on the freight train.
The other refugee was so seriously injured that he now sits in a wheelchair, paralyzed and mutilated.
H. is charged with gang smuggling of foreigners in conjunction with dangerous bodily harm, in one case resulting in death.
The police got on H.'s trail because they analyzed the cell phones of the twelve traffickers from Verona who they met at Trudering train station on the day of the fatal accident.
They should get off here on May 24, 2022.
H's code name "Zaza" and his numbers repeatedly appeared in WhatsApp chats about smuggling.
Striking detail: H. is missing a little finger.
On a WhatsApp video that gave his real name, a man can be seen holding a gun with four fingers.
Cooperation with police stations and databases across Europe, especially with the Verona railway police, ultimately brought the decisive success that revealed H's registration address in Lugano.
Smuggler Hussein Mohammed H. at the first appointment before the Regional Court I in Munich.
© Sigi Jantz
A witness from the Federal Police Inspectorate reports: “We have investigated 108 of around 600 cases of smuggling.
In our opinion, the smugglers around H. acted very unscrupulously.
Among other things, a heavily pregnant woman was also smuggled in shortly before giving birth.
Parents were instructed to give their children sleeping pills to keep them calm.”
The refugees are said to have paid the smugglers between 2,000 and 10,000 euros per person for their secret entry into Germany.
According to the prosecution, they were treated in such a way that their lives were endangered.
This is confirmed by Meliha A., the mother of the dead Melike.
She reports that the refugees initially marched through forests for four days from Bosnia, always staying there in the dark at night.
Once she was so afraid that Ebubekir D., who was later also electrocuted and who played the contact for “Zaza” (i.e. H.), personally gave it to her ear.
“Trust me,” H. said, “you will be picked up soon.” The taxi actually came to Verona that morning.
But at the train station there, everyone became really uneasy.
“We didn't want to get into the carriage, it was huge and looked dangerous.
But the smugglers' helpers, two black people, forced us." Meliha A. finally had to watch as her daughter and a fellow traveler were in flames.
Her son escaped with burnt hair and injuries to his hand.
“We didn’t even know how to call for help in German,” she says through tears.
She paid for the trip anyway.
18,000 euros for herself and her two children were agreed upon.
She did not say how much she ultimately gave for the death journey.
The defendant H. remained silent on the matter.
According to the public prosecutor's office and the police, he only acted as an interpreter.
However, he apologized to Meliha A., who now lives in Munich and is attending a German course, and through his lawyer offered to pay compensation - which Meliha A. refused, crying loudly.
The verdict is scheduled for February 28th.