They were dealing drugs and wanted to kidnap a man with a submachine gun from a bar - that's the charge. In the Hamburg regional court, the men remained silent about the allegations.
Hamburg - According to the indictment, they wanted to kidnap a man at a sports bar with a loaded submachine gun: three men have had to answer for attempted deprivation of liberty before the Hamburg regional court since Friday. They are also said to have done business with large quantities of cocaine and marijuana in various constellations. The 23, 30 and 33 year old defendants remained silent about the allegations on the first day of the trial.
According to the indictment, the 30-year-old, who comes from the Bahamas, was a member of an international drug trafficking organization and came to Germany in July 2023 for the drug deals. Drugs brought to Hamburg are said to have been deposited in several apartments. According to the public prosecutor's office, the 30-year-old sold them profitably to various buyers on behalf of the organization.
The public prosecutor's office is convinced that the 30-year-old's cousin also belonged to the organization. This man, like two other suspected accomplices, will be prosecuted separately, it was said. The investigation revealed that the organization used passwords during its handovers, often the names of major European cities. The public prosecutor's office's list of such package handovers was long. Two examples: At the end of July last year, the 30-year-old gave a customer packages containing a total of 25 kilograms of cocaine - after mentioning the password “Paris”. Two weeks later, according to the public prosecutor's office, six kilograms of drugs followed after the password "Brussels" was mentioned.
The organization is said to have promised the 33-year-old defendant at least 10,000 euros so that he would travel from his home country of the Bahamas to Germany in September 2023 to work for them as a drug courier and money counter. According to the public prosecutor's office, he moved into an apartment in Pinneberg and was supposed to be trained by the 30-year-old, among other things. The investigators are convinced that he handed over at least a kilogram of drugs in October 2023 on the instructions of the organization - but first the name of the French capital should be mentioned again. The third defendant is German; according to the indictment, he received a large amount of cocaine from a depot last fall, packaged in plastic containers for resale.
On November 1, 2023, the 30-year-old is said to have agreed to his cousin to kidnap a man from a sports bar in the Eidelstedt district at gunpoint and to threaten him with death. The other two defendants were supposed to support him. According to the prosecution, the victim had an argument with those behind the attack, as a court spokesman said. But the man recognized the masked defendants, who were armed with a submachine gun, and fled. “He feared for his life,” said the representative of the public prosecutor’s office when the charges were read out.
According to a court spokesman, the investigators evaluated chat messages and video material. The 30-year-old and the 33-year-old are in custody. The regional court has scheduled a total of 16 days of hearings until June 13th. The next appointment is on Tuesday. dpa