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Six Germans accused of involvement in a jewellery heist in 2019 at a museum housing one of Europe's most important art collections appeared before a court in Dresden on Friday, while the fate of the treasures is still unknown.
As reported by Reuters, the defendants, aged between 22 and 28, who were not named under German privacy laws, are charged with aggravated gang theft and aggravated arson, according to the Dresden public prosecutor's office.
The suspects allegedly broke into Dresden's Green Dome (Gruenes Gewoelbe Museum) in the early morning hours of November 25, 2019, removing 21 pieces of jewelry, which contained more than 4.300 diamonds, with an estimated value of €113 million.
"The defendants allegedly prepared the crime meticulously," said Thomas Ziegler, spokesman for the Dresden District Court. He said prosecutors believe the six had examined the crime scene beforehand, sawed off part of the window grill beforehand and repositioned it so they could get into the building as quickly as possible during the robbery.
Prosecutors said in September that the defendants did not shed light on the charges against them. Police offered a €500,000 reward to anyone who could provide information about the fate of the jewels.
"So far, there are no leads," Juergen Schmidt, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office in Dresden, told Reuters on Friday, adding that even if convicted, the defendants could not be forced to testify in court about the fate of the treasures.
There is no evidence so far that the jewels were destroyed or sold, said Anja Priewe, a spokeswoman for the Dresden State Art Collection Museum.
[BR][BR]"We hope that renewed attention to the matter will lead to new evidence ... and more details will be revealed to help identify the stolen jewellery," Priewe said, adding that similar cases show that it often takes a long time to unravel. In 2016, two Van Gogh paintings, worth €50 million each, were discovered more than 13 years after they were stolen in a Mafia heist.
Four of the suspects could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted, and the maximum sentence for the youngest defendants, who are twins, would be 10 years in a juvenile prison, Schmidt said. All the defendants belong to the same family, he added.
The trial is expected to continue through the end of October. More than a dozen defense attorneys are representing the suspects, who are in custody. Two of them have already been sentenced to four and a half years in prison for their involvement in the theft of the Big Maple Leaf, a 100 kilogram gold coin worth €3.75 million, from Berlin's Bode Museum in 2017.
The stolen Dresden collection was set up in the 18th century by Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and later King of Poland, who commissioned more and more brilliant jewellery because of his competition with his rival, King Louis XIV of France.
The treasure survived Allied bombing during World War II and was confiscated as war booty by the Soviet Union. They were returned to Dresden, the historic capital of Saxony, in 1958.
Source: CNA
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