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Golden Bird's Nest (Archive): Long since melted down?
Photo: Lorenz Vossen / Berliner Morgenpost / dpa
His desperation can still be heard outside in the court hall.
"I'm innocent," shouts Munyr F. He sobs and curses in Arabic as more and more judicial officers pour into room B218 of the Berlin-Tiergarten district court.
The verdict hits the 20-year-old member of a clan unexpectedly.
He did not expect that he would no longer leave the courtroom as a free man this Monday.
The court is convinced that Munyr F. and at least one other perpetrator stole a golden bird's nest from a Biesdorf elementary school in the Marzahn-Hellersdorf district of Berlin on the night of May 15, 2019. The presiding judge Andreas Dietz, a lay judge and a lay judge sentenced the young man to a youth sentence of four and a half years, among other things, for joint theft in a particularly serious case. The court thus complies with the public prosecutor's request. An earlier conviction was included in the judgment, it is not yet legally binding. The defense has announced an appeal. Munyr F.'s lawyers had demanded acquittal.
The thieves came just after midnight. At least two perpetrators broke a window, opened the window and broke into the foyer of the elementary school. The gold nest was in a multi-secured glass showcase. The thieves smeared a camera with black paint, destroyed the safety glass of the showcase with an ax and a special saw and stole the work of art. The artist Thorsten Goldberg had woven the 841 gram nest from 74 branches made of solid fine gold. The court assumes a material value of 30,000 euros.
The accused's DNA was found on the handle of the window through which the thieves entered the school, "a clear trace," says the judge. In pictures that the camera smeared with paint recorded, perpetrators can be seen wearing gloves. The court assumes that Munyr F. was also wearing gloves when he opened the window. The court said his DNA was stuck to the glove. Probably his DNA got to the handle because he had previously put his gloved hand in his face. "Just like now," says the judge, pointing to the accused. Munyr F. sits in the dock with his head bowed and one hand on his forehead.
A few days before the act, police officers observed the then 18-year-old at the school together with his ten-year-old brother and a 19-year-old member of the Berlin Remmo clan.
Munyr F. looked into the building.
"There is no plausible reason why he was at the school," says the judge.
Unless he spied the scene of the crime, which is what the court is assuming.
The court also regards it as proven that Munyr F. bought gloves and spray paint in a hardware store a few hours before the crime, as they were used in school.
Munyr F. was under observation at the time.
The investigators expected due to his numerous previous convictions that he would be offended again.
"In the end, the suspicion came true," says Richter Dietz.
"If the observation had lasted a few hours longer, he would have been caught red-handed."
Munyr F. was the first and only in his family to complete an education, says the defense
The defense, the representative of the youth welfare service, and his probation officer campaigned for the defendant on Monday.
Munyr F. is on the right track, they say.
He was the first and only in his family to complete an apprenticeship.
He has a legal job and has not committed a criminal offense in the past two years.
The defendant's guilt cannot be proven, says the defense. The glove with its DNA could also have been used by others. “The gloves could have come from his household. It's not as if only people live there who have never come into conflict with the law. «Munyr F. still lives with his parents. Defense attorney Olaf Franke emphasizes that a prison sentence would be a fatal signal for the defendant who is striving for a civil existence: »Society does not want you. You have a wrong name. "
The court does not accept that.
"What should we do?" Asks the judge.
It is meant as a rhetorical question.
"In the last five years he has never managed to live completely unpunished." Together with others, he stole cigarettes, clothes, cell phones, slapped a man in the face and insulted police officers.
When the gold nest disappeared from the school, he was on parole.
The court sees the theft of the gold nest as a step in the wrong direction.
"We're not talking about a cracked car." When the work of art was stolen from the school, special tools were used that are not freely available.
For the court, the procurement of such a tool is an indication of a worrying development.
"Here we are in the area of high crime."
It is unknown who the accomplices were.
Munyr F. was silent in court.
The suspicion against a Remmo member could not be confirmed.
The nest stayed gone.
"The gold nest will have melted down long ago," says the judge.
The court issued an arrest warrant against Munyr F on Monday evening. He had proven his impulse to flee a few minutes earlier.
When the judge announced the amount of the sentence, he jumped up and ran to the door.
Three judicial officers blocked his exit.