It may well be understood as a message. The way to the dock in room 700 of the Kriminalgericht Berlin leads Wayci Remmo in the morning through a trellis of cameramen and photographers. But the 24-year-old does not want to be filmed. He hides his face behind a magazine: "Knowledge & Amazement" is the title, below it is written in large letters: "Be careful, do not let any know-it-all-betrayer!"
That's not a coincidence. Presumably a recommendation from his defenders to the public, just not to believe everything that can be heard about the family Remmo in general and the defendants in particular. The notorious Arab-born extended family is associated with all sorts of crimes. The media interest on this day is correspondingly high. The defense will speak a little later of an "unprecedented prejudice."
Wayci Remmo, his brother Ahmed and his cousin Wissam and the co-defendant Denis W. have since Thursday been responsible for theft in a particularly serious case before the Berlin district court. And if it's true what the prosecution accuses them of, then the four young men have managed to get a big piece of a piece of trinket.
DPA
Gold coin "Big Maple Leaf" (2010 in the Bode Museum)
3.75 million euros should have been worth the gold coin, which disappeared on the night of March 27, 2017 from the Berlin Bode Museum. The "Big Maple Leaf" with the image of Queen Elizabeth II has a diameter of 53 centimeters, is three inches thick, about 100 kilos and made of pure gold. It is considered the second largest gold coin in the world, there were only five copies of her. Now there are probably only four left. Because the investigators assume that the Berlin coin has long been made piece by piece to money.
Ahmed Remmo and Denis W. are 20 years old and students. Wissam Remmo is 22 and works for a courier company. At the time of the crime, all three were still adolescents, so it is being negotiated before a juvenile punishment chamber chaired by Judge Dorothee Prüfer. The three men are threatened with juvenile justice for a maximum of five years in prison. The oldest defendant, Wayci Remmo, is 24 and a student. Adult criminal law provides for up to ten years in prison for serious theft.
The defendants do not comment on the allegations, they use their right to remain silent. The defenders of Denis W. and Wayci Remmo are instead making statements in which they accuse the authorities unilateral investigation and the evidence of the prosecutor's office as extremely poor. The evidence will show what will be left of the charges brought by Attorney Martina Lamb at trial.
Entry through a window to the locker room?
Denis W. worked as a security guard in the museum. He is said to have known Ahmed Remmo from school and, according to the indictment, to have shown him and his relatives the way to the coin. Wissam, Ahmed and Wayci Remmo are said to have climbed into the museum at about 3:20 pm through a window to the employees' changing room that Monday night.
There are videos of a security camera, the three black men dressed shortly before show at the S-Bahn Hackescher Markt. Train traffic did not exist at this time. The three were to jump into the track bed and run over the tracks to the Museum Island. Via a ladder they should have reached the window on the second floor of the museum. A few rooms away was the showcase with the coin.
The safety glass of the showcase is said to have destroyed the defendants with an ax and balanced the gold coin on a rolling board. According to the prosecutor, they hoisted their treasure out of the locker window, pushed it over the railway embankment with a wheelbarrow and finally took it away with a getaway car. Back there was a little gold dust here and there.
Arab extended families - the video series
Evidently, V people provided the clue to Denis W. and his acquaintance to Ahmed Remmo. The investigators heard his phone calls and got the impression that Denis W. had suddenly come to money after the crime. He seemed to have bought a gold necklace for 11,000 euros, to be interested in a Mercedes and a store. His defense lawyer Marcel Kelz contradicted this interpretation in a statement in court.
The gold chain had been a gift of the grandmother to Denis W., it was not about 11,000 euros, but went to 11,000 Turkish Lira, the equivalent of about 1750 euros. His client had never owned his own car and went in the matter of the store, a bakery, it was a family investment in the amount of only 6000 euros. The allegedly secured findings of the investigators are nothing but mere assumptions. Against other employees of the museum was not determined further.
Defender doubts on expert opinion
Toralf Nöding, the defender of Wayci Remmo, had previously doubted an opinion according to which the images of the surveillance camera showed his client and his relatives. Even traces of gold on the clothing of his client proved nothing, just as little gold price research on the Internet.
With grave air, the four defendants listen to the chief prosecutor read the indictment. Concentrated, they follow the explanations of the defenders and also the testimony of the first and only witness on this day, a police officer.
The vast majority of people in the room laugh when the policeman tells them that he initially assumed that the museum had lost a gold coin in the size of a coin rather than a car tire. "We thought a coin was missing," he says.
How much he was wrong had only become clear to him when he stood in front of the destroyed display case and read on a sign from a 100-kilo gold giant. Big laughter in the hall. Only the accused, they do not laugh. They hardly show any emotion on this day, they are well in control. They behave inconspicuously through and through. Not even family members have brought her to support.