Drach admitted to assaults on fellow prisoners

Created: 06/20/2022, 16:47

A figure of the blind Justitia.

© Sonja Wurtscheid/dpa/symbol image

Thomas Drach is counting on acquittal in the current trial against him in Cologne.

But now there is apparently an explosive statement from a fellow prisoner.

Cologne – Reemtsma kidnapper Thomas Drach is said to have admitted to a fellow prisoner that he was accused of three robberies on money transporters.

This emerged on Monday from an application by the defense attorney for Drach's Dutch co-defendant.

According to this, the fellow prisoners and Drach are said to have met and talked to each other in the Cologne-Ossendorf prison during a leisure activity.

Drach is said to have said that the allegations against him are "correct except for one".

Drach is charged with four armed robberies of money transporters in Cologne, Frankfurt am Main and Limburg in Hesse in the trial before the Cologne district court.

In addition to particularly serious robbery, the prosecution also accuses him of attempted murder because Drach is said to have shot money messengers.

On Monday, eyewitnesses reported a robbery of a money transporter in front of an Ikea branch in Frankfurt am Main in 2019. According to the indictment, the robber and the messenger exchanged gunfire, with the messenger suffering serious leg injuries.

A 47-year-old witness testified: "It was a strong spurting arterial hemorrhage." The career soldier had trained as a paramedic and provided first aid.

Since neither tying it off with a belt nor pressing his knee to the injured man's groin stopped the bleeding, "I ended up sticking my finger in the wound."

The money messenger's blood loss was immense.

He had to apply pain stimuli several times so that the injured person remained conscious until paramedics arrived, the witness said.

A 57-year-old had previously testified that her now 78-year-old mother tried to hit the robber with her walking stick.

Her mother, who did not see the gun in the perpetrator's hand, misinterpreted the attack as an argument.

"My mother is right behind with the cane," said the witness.

She pulled her mother away and said: "This is a robbery!" When the shots were fired, they pressed themselves against a wall.

She said to her mother: "Don't move, don't let us get anything."

Drach had kidnapped the heirs of a Hamburg tobacco dynasty in 1996 and only released him after paying a ransom.

He was sentenced to fourteen years and six months in prison for the crime.

dpa