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Defendant Mahdi H. in court: He and his brother are said to have murdered their older sister
Photo: Olaf Wagner / IMAGO
On August 5, 2021, the suspicions of the Berlin investigators became certain: Maryam H. is dead. The body of the 34-year-old Afghan woman lay on the side of a dirt road, around 25 kilometers east of Donauwörth, where her brother Yousuf lived in Bavaria.
Like a second brother, Mahdi H., he now has to answer before the 22nd Major Criminal Chamber of the Berlin Regional Court.
Prosecutors are convinced that the men murdered their sister because she was making her own decisions about her life.
In court, the defendants remain silent on the allegations.
Police officers reported on the investigation on several days of the hearing.
Recordings from surveillance cameras at the Berlin-Südkreuz train station had led the Berlin officials to Bavaria.
Videos showed how Yousuf and Mahdi H. boarded an ICE in the direction of Munich with a large black trolley case.
The suitcase was clearly dented.
The LKA officials got hold of an identical model.
A colleague climbed into the suitcase to try it out, she fit in completely.
Investigators obtained the brothers' cellphone data.
Yousuf H. had phoned his girlfriend in Donauwörth during the train ride.
She initially withheld the truth from the officers, but eventually revealed the place where Maryam H. was buried.
"She was a bit overwhelmed by the whole situation," an LKA officer recalls when she first met the girlfriend of Yousuf H., a Hungarian who hardly speaks German.
The first interrogation lasted three hours, an interpreter translated, and the witness did not want a lawyer.
She seemed intimidated and was very reluctant to answer questions.
Shortly before, her boyfriend and his brother had been arrested.
"surprise situation"
Yousuf and Mahdi H. arrived in Donauwörth late in the evening of July 13, the witness said.
The younger brother drove back to Berlin early the next morning.
»Our most urgent questions were: Where is the suitcase?
And where is the body?” the LKA officer said in court on Wednesday.
The woman replied that the suitcase was in her boyfriend's apartment on the bedroom closet.
But the case looked too unused to match the bulging model in the surveillance footage.
And the missing woman?
Yousuf H. told her that his sister had probably traveled to Turkey.
Another sister from Afghanistan planned to get to Berlin via Turkey with the help of smugglers.
Perhaps Maryam wanted to receive her in Turkey?
The investigators had never heard this story before, and no one in the woman's immediate circle had reported anything of the sort.
The witness spoke of her boyfriend's other considerations, then the interrogation was interrupted.
The next day, the LKA officers visited the witness again.
This time her daughter translated.
They asked Yousuf H's girlfriend for her cell phone to check the location data.
The defenders of the accused brothers complained in court that they were "taken by surprise".
Did the woman know that she didn't have to give up her cell phone voluntarily?
Was the minor daughter a suitable interpreter?
Did she know what location data is and what the Hungarian translation is?
Suspicious visit to the hardware store
Apparently Yousuf H.'s girlfriend was not aware that her mobile phone was storing a movement profile.
An LKA officer discovered an unusual route on July 14, 2021. A navigator app had recorded the route including time information: from her apartment to a hardware store, from the hardware store to the small village of Holzkirchen.
Only ten people shopped at that hardware store on July 14 between 8:46 a.m. and 9:01 a.m.
A shovel, spade and gloves were noted on one of the receipts.
In Holzkirchen, the app had saved the address of a farm.
The cell phone stayed there for a good three-quarters of an hour.
Investigators spoke to the owner of the farm.
But the older woman could not help the police from Berlin, she had never seen Yousuf H.
There are extensive fields behind her farm.
An LKA man reported in court this week that the investigators had already requested a sniffer dog and considered how best to proceed in the search for Maryam H.
Then the message reached her from her colleagues, who were interviewing Yousuf H's girlfriend again at the same time.
Confronted with her mobile phone data and the question of a shovel and spade from the hardware store, the girlfriend gave in.
She is now ready to show the spot where Maryam H's body may be lying.
The LKA man who was present at the interrogation reported this Friday how they drove to Holzkirchen together.
A colleague filmed the woman walking purposefully along a dirt road, heading for a small clearing and showing where Yousuf H. had disappeared into the bushes.
The spot was around 400 meters from the farm whose address was stored in the cell phone.
The girlfriend knows the remote place well.
She had been there several times with Yousuf H. to pick mushrooms.
She burst into tears
Yousuf H. and she drove to that spot in two cars on the morning of July 14, 2021.
She should have waited in her car.
At some point she got bored and ran after him.
She doesn't want to see what he did.
But she heard him sob.
When he got back to the car, he cried.
There had been an accident in Berlin, he told her on the evening of his arrival in Donauwörth.
"Please don't ask me about it," he asked her.
"Everything will be fine.
Someday I'll tell you."
When the police informed her that they had found Maryam H's body, Yousuf H's friend burst into tears.
