Drach trial: robbery in Cologne, possibly attempted murder
Created: 01/13/2022, 02:28 PM
A statue of Lady Justice stands in the open air.
© Arne Dedert / dpa / symbol image
In the upcoming trial against former Reemtsma kidnapper Thomas Drach, another attack could be rated as attempted murder.
The Cologne Regional Court pointed this out to the defendant in its opening order for the main hearing, as a spokesman announced on Thursday.
Cologne - Accordingly, the responsible chamber sees the robbery on a money transporter at Cologne / Bonn Airport, in which a security guard was seriously injured in 2019, a sufficient suspicion of an attempted homicide.
Characteristics of murder are greed and the concealment of a criminal offense.
In this respect, the Chamber's legal assessment goes beyond the prosecution's indictment, who charged this act as dangerous bodily harm.
The trial of Drach and an alleged accomplice is due to begin on February 1.
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Drach are accused of four robberies on money transporters in Cologne, Frankfurt am Main and Limburg.
The public prosecutor's office charged the crime in Frankfurt with attempted murder.
Drach is said to have seriously injured a money messenger there by being shot with a revolver and approved of his death.
During the attack in Cologne, Drach, who was born in nearby Erftstadt, is also said to have shot a security guard and hit him in the thigh.
Drach was arrested in Amsterdam in February 2021.
His defense lawyer said in September: "The evidence is extremely poor and most of the allegations are speculative."
The court has set 53 trial days for the trial until the end of September.
Substantial security precautions would be taken for the process, including road closures around the justice center, said the court spokesman.
In 1996, Drach and accomplices kidnapped the heir of the Hamburg tobacco dynasty Reemtsma, Jan Philipp Reemtsma, and released him after 33 days - for a ransom of 15 million Deutschmarks and 12.5 million Swiss francs.
The Hamburg district court sentenced him to fourteen and a half years in prison.
dpa