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Policeman with forensics after the theft in Dresden in November 2019: Jihad Remmo is said to have driven the thieves' car.
Photo: Matthias Rietschel/ REUTERS
As a visitor, Jihad Remmo followed the process of breaking into the Green Vault this Tuesday in the high-security hall of the Dresden Regional Court.
Six members of his family are charged, including his brother Bashir Remmo.
Jihad Remmo has no idea that these will be his last hours of freedom.
At 2:50 p.m., the presiding judge ends the day of the hearing.
A few minutes later, Jihad Remmo is arrested.
He owes this to a relative: Rabieh Remo.
He too is in the dock.
"Aware of the entire crime plan"
The public prosecutor's office in Dresden accuses Jihad Remmo of having assisted the six accused in breaking into the Green Vault, stealing the Saxon Treasure and also in the particularly serious arson in an underground car park in Dresden.
"He is specifically accused of having extensively prepared and planned the crime of the six main defendants," says Jürgen Schmidt, spokesman for the public prosecutor's office, in the early evening and adds: "With knowledge of the entire crime plan."
Jihad Remmo was a regular visitor to the trial.
A preliminary investigation into this matter has also been going on against him for a long time.
So why the arrest now?
The public prosecutor's office expressly justified this step with Rabieh Remo's admission.
His testimony in court "contributed not insignificantly to the justification of the urgent suspicion," says the spokesman.
He did mention a name
Rabieh Remo had his defense attorney read a statement on his behalf on March 29, 2022.
In it, Rabieh Remo said that he knew who significantly planned the crime and who was involved.
"I don't want to and won't comment on other people's involvement in the crime." He only wanted to talk about his own involvement, he said.
But he did mention one name: Jihad Remmo.
Jihad Remmo was behind the wheel of a car that Rabieh Remo and other men drove to Rabieh Remo's apartment in Berlin on the evening of November 24, 2019.
There Rabieh Remo got clothes for the burglary and then met other people and wanted to drive with them to the Green Vault in Dresden that night.
There were burglary tools in the trunk
But Jihad Remmo, Rabieh Remo and the others got caught in a police check.
Your personal details have been identified.
There were burglary tools in the trunk.
"It was perfectly clear to me that that was the end of it," Rabieh Remo said.
He claims to have got out of the car and spent the night with his parents in Berlin, not in Dresden.
"Jihad continued," he said.
He didn't say where he was going.
According to the public prosecutor's office, apart from Rabieh Remo's statement, there are other indications that Jihad Remmo was involved.
His apartment in Berlin-Kreuzberg and his car were searched on Tuesday.
The spokesman did not say what other evidence there is for his involvement in the crime.
Traces destroyed with the fire extinguisher
In any case, Jihad Remmo himself heard in the courtroom on Tuesday that his DNA was not found in the green vault of the residential palace, nor on the palace wall, over which the thieves climbed in the early morning hours of November 25, 2019.
Ralf Nixdorf, head of DNA analysis at the Saxony State Criminal Police Office, gave his report that day.
The investigators did not find any relevant and usable DNA in the Green Vault.
The perpetrators sprayed the contents of a fire extinguisher in the Green Vault and thus successfully destroyed any possible traces.
“We don't like that kind of thing,” says Nixdorf.
"That's already negative for forensics."
Genetic material was only found on a piece of wall outside the castle.
It was clearly assigned to four defendants: Wissam, Bashir and Mohamed Remmo and Rabieh Remo.
A weak DNA trace, "near the detection limit," points to a fifth defendant, Abdul Majed Remmo.
But the fact that he is the cause of this trail is merely “cannot be ruled out” and is therefore a weak indication.
No DNA was found from the sixth defendant, Ahmed Remmo.
The expert cannot say when exactly the DNA traces of the accused reached the crime scene.
They may have been left there the morning of the burglary, but also days, even weeks before.
"We're talking loosely of two weeks that DNA would survive there unchanged," says expert Nixdorf.
It was not raining at that time, the weather was "cool and dry."
Good for maintaining a DNA lead.
Bad for using the DNA to provide concrete evidence of a crime.
Rabieh Remo, for example, has an explanation for his DNA hit.
Four days before the burglary, he claims to have been at the Dresden Residenzschloss, but not on the actual morning of the crime.
Jihad Remmo will be brought before the magistrate on Wednesday.
Then it will be decided whether the seventh member of the Berlin Remmo clan will also be taken into custody.
