Two people convicted of stealing jewelry from the historic Green Vault in the eastern German city of Dresden will remain free after failing to report to prison by a deadline on Tuesday.
The burglary at the famous Saxony Treasury Museum on November 25, 2019 was one of the most spectacular art thefts in German history.
The perpetrators stole 21 items of jewelry made of diamonds and gemstones and caused more than €1 million ($1.1 million) in damage, including setting fire to one of their getaway cars in an underground parking garage of a residential building.
The Dresden Regional Court suspended a number of arrest warrants, but did impose conditions at the end of the trial. These conditions were part of an agreement, which included the return of most of the loot.
A spokesman for the Dresden public prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday that two of the men, a 28-year-old and a 30-year-old, both members of the Berlin crime gang Remmo, had filed a request for a stay of execution, but that the request had been rejected.
The younger man’s lawyer has requested a court order, which is still pending. It is uncertain whether the other man will challenge the refusal. If not, he will have to report for prison.
The two men, along with another young man from the Remmo clan who was also convicted, were released from pre-trial detention after their conviction in May 2023.
The 28-year-old and 30-year-old were summoned on July 19 for prison sentences, in accordance with the guidelines of the Berlin sentencing plan for their open detention.
They were sentenced to five years and ten months and six years and two months in prison respectively, and had already spent 911 days in pre-trial detention, which has been credited.
In May 2023, the Dresden Regional Court sentenced a total of five young men from the well-known Arab family from Berlin to several years in prison. The decision is now legally binding.
Four of them had their arrest warrants suspended with conditions at the end of the trial as part of an agreement that included the return of most of the loot. However, because one of them was still serving another sentence, only three of them were actually released temporarily.
The fifth convict had to remain in prison because he did not agree to the deal. The sixth suspect, a cousin of the co-defendants, was acquitted.
