Three members of a notorious criminal gang have confessed to stealing priceless 18th-century jewelry from a German state museum at their trial in Dresden.
Rabieh Remmo, one of six accused, told the Oststadt district court that he and an unnamed accomplice broke into the Green Vault in a brazen nighttime raid in November 2019.
In a statement agreed to as part of a criminal case, he said they smashed the glass of the showcases with an ax and stuffed the jewelry into a sack they had brought with them. The accomplice then used a fire extinguisher to destroy all traces of his DNA.
The group, who had surrounded the museum on two previous trips, fled in a getaway car to a parking garage, where they set the vehicle on fire to cover their tracks before returning to Berlin.
“My contribution to the crime was greater than I first said,” said Remmo, who filed a partial confession last year. “I was in the rooms of the Green Vault myself.”
Rabieh Remmo covers his face in court. Photo: PortalTwo other defendants, Wissam and Mohamed Remmo, also told the court in statements read by their lawyers that they had taken part in the attack. However, they said they had not been to the museum but stood guard and received the stolen goods and tools used in the burglary.
The idea came about after a younger friend “returned from an excursion to the Green Vault in Dresden and raved about the green diamonds on display there”.
A fourth defendant said he would make a statement at the next hearing on Friday, as part of a deal agreed between defense attorneys and prosecutors and approved by the court last week.
In exchange for their confessions and the return of most of the valuable jewels, the accused are to receive lighter sentences.
A composite image of some of the items stolen in the raid. Photo: Juergen Karpinski/APA fifth suspect has rejected the deal, while the sixth and final suspect has told judges he had an alibi for the day of the robbery.
Last week, the court recommended several years in prison for the theft of jewelry worth at least 113.8 million euros. German media called it the largest art theft in modern history.
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The judges proposed a prison sentence of four years and nine months to six years and nine months as part of the agreement with the lawyers that resulted in some of the stolen valuables being recovered from a river in mid-December.
The thieves stole 21 pieces of jewelry and other treasures from the collection of the Saxon ruler Augustus the Strong, set with more than 4,300 individual diamonds. Some of the pieces are still missing, including a brooch that belonged to Queen Amalie Auguste of Saxony, while many of the pieces recovered are badly damaged.
The jewels included a sword with a diamond-set hilt and a shoulder piece containing the famous 49-carat white Dresden diamond.
“I didn’t keep the loot – I didn’t have access to it. I don’t know what happened to it,” Rabieh Remmo said on Tuesday. “I have done everything to ensure that what is left comes back to Dresden.”
The accused are members of the so-called Remmo clan, an extended family known for ties to organized crime in Germany. Another 40 people are still being sought and are said to have been involved in the robbery.