Hamburg: pensioner Michael J. after bank robbery in court

Michael J. is a man of many words. Even before he opens his mouth, he hurls his first opinion at the audience. He presents a thick file folder. "Bankers bunker a billion euros for pensions" is written on it, letters cut out of a newspaper. Often, defendants hide behind their folders, Michael J. posing with a straight back for the photographer. He smiles. The trial, it seems, is his grand entrance.

Depending on how the verdict turns out, it could be his last.

At the beginning of the trial, Michael J. defended himself at the Hamburg district court. At the beginning of January 2019, he was arrested directly in front of a savings bank branch in Hamburg, which he allegedly robbed earlier. He is said to have invaded banks in 2011 and 2017 as well. The prosecution accuses Michael J. of predatory extortion in three cases, illicit possession of weapons and attempted murder.

A mafioso from Upper Bavaria

Michael J. wears jacket and tie, his wavy hair is neatly combed back. On the left wrist emblazoned a massive gold watch. In his appearance he is reminiscent of an Italian mafioso in old Hollywood films. But Michael J. does not come from Sicily, but from Benediktbeuren in Upper Bavaria.

Not only in his elevator, but also in his crime, Michael J. seems to have fallen out of time. Bank robberies have become rarer for years. Too low the booty. Too high the risk of being caught. Michael J. is said to have captured around 25,000 euros in the three raids.

Eleven days of trial are scheduled to decide on Michael J's alleged crimes. As a serial offender threatens him preventive detention, the 70-year-old would then probably die in prison.

Michael J. gives everything so that it does not come to it. On the first day of the trial, only the charges should be read. Actually. Because the defendant uses every opportunity to introduce himself verbatim. Again and again he interrupts the court to tell from his past: He shows holiday photos and tells of the star hotels in which he has worked. "Absolute Top Hotel" or "very well-known gastronomy", he says.

Michael J. does not deny the deeds accused of him. But it is very important to him that they are presented in the right light. Reason for the attacks were, according to his interpretation, too low a pension and impending tax and insurance payments.

It is not the first trial in which the 70-year-old defendant faces the judge. In 1972 Michael J. attacked his first bank. At eight and a half years in prison followed seven more raids and thirteen and a half years further jail. At that time Michael J. was known as the "Thursday robber", because his raids followed a regularity: On Thursday, when the banks closed at 18 clock, the man stormed financial institutions in Hamburg, Hanover and Ulm - and fled on a bike.

"Box on, otherwise I will shoot"

In 1990, he led a prison revolt in the Hamburg Penitentiary of Santa Fu. Together with the former RAF member Peter-Jürgen Boock - the two sat together in Santa Fu at the time of the uprising - he quarreled in the daily newspaper "taz" about the suicides in Stammheim.

He was released from prison in 2000 and lived a modest life with his mother. On January 10, 2019, he was supposed to go on his last bank robbery, which ended with his arrest. Michael J. marched into a branch of Hamburger Sparkasse. He pulled his Chester brand gun and pointed it at two bank employees. "Box on, or I'll shoot," he shouted, and postpones, "Actually, I can not shoot at people." If one follows the allegations of the indictment, but he should have done exactly this in 2017: In a robbery on a bank on the Hamburg Holstenstraße Michael J. is said to have shot an uninvolved bank employee in the stomach. The man survived seriously injured after an emergency operation.

What is in the yellow box?

Michael J. is defended by lawyers Johannes Rauwald and Gerhard Strate. Strate is in Hamburg as a defender. The defendant, however, seems to regard his lawyer more as a decorative accessory than as his defense.

During his time in prison, Michael J. had acquired an extensive knowledge of German law, as he reads through his defense. That's why he wants to submit applications himself.

Michael J's first application concerns a yellow box. She is of great importance to him. Because in this box, the robber collected things that he is proud of: newspaper article about his leadership in the Santa Fu Uprising, legalization of his education in the legal system, judgments of the Federal Constitutional Court, which he has achieved through complaints and complaints. During his first stay in prison, Michael J. filed 330 petitions with the Hamburg judicial authorities concerning the living conditions of the inmates. In some cases he was quite right, gives defenders Strate. The Hamburg lawyer represented Michael J. already in the 90s: When the Hamburg judicial authority moved the complaining inmate inmates to Bavaria, complained with Strates help back to Hamburg.

According to Michael J's view, relieving material is contained in this box. During a house search, she was seized and not yet made accessible to all parties. Therefore, J. accuses Prosecutor Lars Mahnke of being biased. The application is dismissed as unfounded.

"He was very friendly"

If statements of the court Michael J. displeased, then he taunts mockingly. In the breaks, he tigers in front of the public space up and down. Again and again he fixed individual viewers with a fixed look.

Three witnesses are heard in the morning, one of them is police officer Rohan G.

"He was very friendly," recalls Rohan G. Again and again, the defendant thanked that they had not shot at the arrest on him. Michael J. also thanks in court again for the "exemplary use", but still states that he has suffered bruises and swollen wrists from the arrest.

The police officer reported that he had noticed during the trip to the Bureau how much the bank robber circled his mind without showing empathy for the threatened bank employees. "He was scared of being shot himself, but the employees were afraid of his gun, which he did not seem to understand." Again and again Michael J. said: "But I did not do anything."

Editor's note: In an earlier version of the text, it was said that Michael J. had been charged with dangerous assault. However, the prosecution accused him, among other things for attempted murder.