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Money transporters and police officers on Kurfürstendamm in Berlin in 2014: masked people stole cash of more than 600,000 euros
Photo: Jörg Carstensen / dpa
Around six months after the attack on a money transporter on Berlin's Kurfürstendamm, the regional court in the capital sentenced a 31-year-old to seven years in prison for serious robbery and assault.
The court saw it as proven on Wednesday that Muhamed R. and three unknown accomplices attacked the money transporter on February 19, thereby stealing more than 600,000 euros in cash.
"Lesson on serious crime"
The perpetrators are said to have masked the van and disguised as garbage collectors in front of a bank branch - "in broad daylight, on the open street and exposed on the Kudamm," as the presiding judge Sebastian Brinsal said.
R. had disarmed a security guard there "like a lightning bolt" while holding a blank gun.
According to the court, he sprayed two of the employees with irritant gas, while his accomplices stowed the loot in a transport sack he was carrying.
Then all fled in a car.
This was later parked in a parking lot and set on fire.
In the grounds of the judgment, Brinsal spoke of a "professionally planned and carried out lesson on serious crime."
As a prerequisite for an understanding offered by the court, the defendant had already admitted his involvement in the act on the first day of the trial.
The 31-year-old has a criminal record and is a member of a well-known Berlin family clan.
In favor of the defendant, according to Brinsal, spoke the early confession, which he also expanded in detail during the main hearing, as well as the apology to the employees of the money transporter who were heard as witnesses.
At the expense of R. he listed, among other things, the accused's numerous previous convictions and the "extremely high" looted value.
Accommodation in a facility for addicts
In addition to the imprisonment, the court ordered the confiscation of the booty worth around 650,000 euros and, after one and a half years, to be placed in a rehab facility.
In doing so, the court complied exactly with the public prosecutor's demands.
R.'s defense lawyers, on the other hand, had pleaded for a prison sentence of six and a half years.
On the first day of the trial, the court, public prosecutor and defense agreed on a sentence of between six and a half and seven and a half years in prison as part of an understanding.
As a condition for the understanding, the court had made a credible, valuable confession of the accused.
The process lasted three days of negotiation.
ala / dpa
