As of: February 23, 2024, 4:00 p.m
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The criminal code and files are on the table in a court.
© Swen Pförtner/dpa/Symbolbild
There were cinematic but dangerous scenes in Reutlingen's pedestrian zone: carjackers chased the police there.
One of them is now sitting in the dock.
Stuttgart - A suspected carjacker caused a stir a year and a half ago with a dozen break-ins into car dealerships and a chase into Reutlingen's pedestrian zone.
The 44-year-old has been in court in Stuttgart since Friday because, among other things, he is accused of serious gang theft.
While two alleged accomplices have already been sentenced to prison terms of several years, the trial against the third suspect is scheduled for three more days of trial before the regional court until the end of March.
From the prosecutor's point of view, there was a method behind the trio's raids: the thieves almost always specialized in new Renault Master vans.
Between November 2021 and October 2022, they broke into automobile dealers in the evening and at night in, among other places, Illertissen, Kirchroth, Würzburg and Kaufbeuren, Memmingen and Türkheim (all Bavaria) as well as in Ravensburg and Esslingen.
This series continued over the summer months until the officers struck at the end of October following a theft in Ofterdingen (Tübingen district).
In total, the 44-year-old and his then 29-year-old accomplice are said to have stolen cars worth a total of around 717,000 euros, the public prosecutor said at the start of the trial in the 17th Grand Criminal Chamber.
During the thieving tours, the men had a “division of work”: in most cases, another accomplice drove the two men to the crime scene.
According to the indictment, the trio immediately sold the cars abroad.
Many of them had already been sold and were waiting for collection on the dealers' premises.
After a theft in Ofterdingen, the two suspected thieves were pursued by the police and caught up late in the evening on Bundesstraße 28 in Reutlingen.
The officers took action at a red light.
While one of the two men was arrested in the stolen car from the Ofterdingen car dealership, the other, according to the indictment, fled in the second stolen car, rammed a police car and raced towards Reutlingen's pedestrian zone.
Two pedestrians were able to get to safety in time before the man left his car behind and initially successfully ran away on foot.
“He was completely indifferent to the interests of others when he drove away,” said the public prosecutor at the start of the trial.
The man was later arrested, and the police caught the third car thief, who was 23 at the time, in Memmingen (Bavaria).
The other two men were sentenced to prison terms of two and five years in mid-May last year.
dpa