Thomas Drach does not want to comment on the allegations in the trial against him – but he does not remain silent. On the third day of the hearing, he gets upset about the security program he has to go through.
Cologne – The former Reemtsma kidnapper Thomas Drach compared the security measures in the trial against him at the Cologne Regional Court with a film by the French comedian Louis de Funès.
The 61-year-old took the floor somewhat surprisingly on the third day of the hearing and criticized the security program he had to undergo for the trial. Drach is closely accompanied by police officers.
Among other things, he has now changed his pants, “because they pull my belt in and out a hundred times,” said Drach on Wednesday. Now he’s wearing sporty pants, but “now they’ve pulled out the elastic band for me”. He thinks it’s “ridiculous”. He also had to put his shoes on and take them off several times. “As if I were throwing rubber slippers at them,” said Drach, who is accused of, among other things, attempted murder and particularly serious robbery.
Drach is accused of four robberies
“Do you know how that is?” he asked Judge Jörg Michael Bern. “Like a comedy by Louis de Funès. The pants shit brigade.” It was initially unclear which film he meant exactly. In his star role in “The Gendarme of Saint Tropez” (1964), Louis de Funès (1914-1983) patrolled a nudist beach with a police brigade.
In the process, Drach is accused of robbing four money transporters in Cologne, Frankfurt am Main and Limburg. He denies the allegations. A suspected accomplice is charged. High safety precautions apply to the process. Observers, for example, are checked twice before entering the room.
Drach does not want to comment on the allegations themselves. That’s what his lawyers said. He will make use of his right to remain silent and will not provide any information about himself or the matter. The lawyers had also stated before the trial that they expected an acquittal. There is no solid evidence against her client. The Dutch co-defendant also did not want to make any statements. His lawyer called the indictment flimsy, containing no reliable evidence.
After several interruptions and delays in the proceedings, the court was able to interview a witness for the first time on Wednesday. It was a police officer who was one of the first to arrive at one of the crime scenes – a Cologne Ikea branch where a money transporter was attacked at the end of March 2018.
The officer described what happened at the time. It was reported by employees of the security company that a perpetrator had attacked them with a submachine gun in their hands. He asked her to put down a suitcase of money. He also took the revolver of a security guard. He then fled in a black car. A first description of the perpetrator included the key data: about 1.70 meters tall, “slightly stocky”, gray hat and scarf in front of his face.
An employee of the security company made a shocked impression on him, the police officer said as a witness. “He was impressed by the situation.”
The prosecution alleges that Drach carried out the robbery armed with an AK-47 assault rifle. His goal was the daily income of the furniture store. He took the cash himself. In the event of a conviction in the process, Drach would face a long prison sentence as well as preventive detention.
In 1996, the 61-year-old kidnapped the heir to the Hamburg Reemtsma tobacco dynasty, Jan Philipp Reemtsma, and later released him for ransom. He was once sentenced to fourteen and a half years in prison for the crime. In early 2021 he was arrested on suspicion of the raids in the Netherlands. dpa
