Enlarge image
The main defendant in the district court of Düsseldorf: "They wore Rolex watches and drove Mercedes S-Class"
Photo: Oliver Berg / dpa
A lawsuit against members of the Al-Zein clan has begun in Düsseldorf for hostage-taking, gang-related social fraud and other crimes.
Seven members of a large Lebanese family are sitting in the dock.
They all remained silent about the allegations, said senior public prosecutor Stefan Willkomm on Wednesday.
The defenders signaled that nothing would change for the time being.
The seven accused are between 22 and 47 years old.
Two of them are in custody.
The indictment is 127 pages long.
According to the investigators, the seven family members are also accused of robbery, tax evasion, aggravated assault, money laundering, extortion and forced labor.
There is a risk of up to 15 years imprisonment.
Prosecutor Radbod Tafaghodrad read the indictment for an hour and a half.
The suspects are charged with a number of crimes, including:
In September 2018, the main defendant and his sons are said to have abducted a man in Düsseldorf to the soundproofed basement of a shisha bar.
Several men repeatedly hit the victim on orders from the head of the family in order to extort information about his relationship with a certain woman.
They will kill him and bury him in the forest, the suspects are said to have said and have shovels ready to back up the threat.
The accused demanded 1,000 euros in monthly protection money from the owner of a Düsseldorf car repair shop.
In order to reinforce the demand, they beat him up so badly that the man had to be hospitalized.
In Leverkusen, a hairdresser was led to believe that the group would support him in founding his own company.
In fact, he was exploited as cheap labor, whose 70-hour week was compensated with 250 euros.
When the hairdresser refused to continue working, four defendants threatened the man.
In addition to these offenses, the accused apparently committed large-scale welfare fraud.
Although the family resided in Leverkusen in a villa with 300 square meters of living space and had considerable assets, the family is said to have received social benefits of 456,000 euros between 2014 and 2021.
Prosecutor Radbod Tafaghodrad says the accused had "accumulated considerable wealth" from criminal activities.
"They wore Rolex watches and drove Mercedes S-Class."
Nevertheless, the family submitted 26 applications for social benefits for various communities of need at the job center in Leverkusen.
"The prerequisites were never met," said the prosecutor.
The confiscation of the villa and other assets have been applied for.
NRW Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) said on Wednesday that investigators had "invested many thousands of hours" in the process.
The case shows: NRW is "no longer a paradise" for criminal family clans.
Every fifth case of organized crime now has a clan connection.
The regional court is preparing for a longer trial and has scheduled 30 days of hearings until the end of November.
According to the current situation report by the State Criminal Police Office, 231 suspects are attributed to the Al-Zein clan, who are said to be responsible for 431 crimes.
It is considered the second largest clan in North Rhine-Westphalia.
According to investigators, a double-digit number of clan members are currently in prison.
jpz/dpa
