Years of family feud culminates in murder: indictment

Created: 07/28/2022, 15:29

Handcuffs are stuck in the belt clip of a law enforcement officer.

© Friso Gentsch/dpa/symbol image

It all started with the argument about a place in the cinema.

The relationship was tense for years, and the conflict broke out again at a wedding in 2018.

According to the investigators, a tragic incident then led to an escalation.

Berlin - The dispute over a cinema seat has led to years of hostility between two families in Berlin and finally culminated in the killing of a 42-year-old.

The Berlin public prosecutor is convinced of this and has filed charges of joint murder against three men aged 29, 34 and 52.

They are said to have killed the victim on October 2, 2021 in Berlin-Wedding in front of a shisha bar with two targeted shots in the head, as a spokesman for the authorities announced on Thursday.

Two of the accused - the 34-year-old and his father (52) - were in open prison at the time of the crime and were therefore able to leave the prison during the day.

At the time, the two men were serving a sentence because they had already attacked the 42-year-old after a wedding party in October 2018 in order to give him a "memo".

In July 2019, the Berlin Regional Court sentenced her to three years in prison for collective dangerous bodily harm.

However, this obviously did not lead to her giving up her grudge against the 42-year-old.

The investigators see the reason for this in a tragic incident at the wedding celebration in autumn 2018: At that time, the suspect's sister or daughter died from a shot.

This had come loose from a weapon that a family member had not secured adequately.

However, the family did not seek the blame for this incident in their own ranks, but saw it in the 42-year-old: without his behavior, the family would not have argued at all.

According to the public prosecutor, the man was banned from Berlin for a while after the two Bosnian-Herzegovinian families called in so-called justices of the peace.

However, the spokesman for the authorities explained that these efforts to bring about peace "outside judicial structures" in the form of "parallel justice" did not calm the situation.

After his return to Berlin, the investigators are convinced that the 42-year-old was shot dead.

The trio is said to have felt provoked because the man appeared in the bar in Berlin-Wedding.

Father and son returned to prison after the crime, sources said.

They were immediately transferred to the closed prison.

The 29-year-old was arrested on the run in Regensburg, Bavaria.

dpa