Bank robbery in Berlin-Zehlendorf 1995

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The bank robbery in Berlin-Zehlendorf on June 27, 1995 is considered to be one of the most spectacular bank robberies in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany. He received a lot of attention worldwide because of the unusual approach of the perpetrators.

Course of events

As early as March 1994, three Syrians, a Lebanese, an Italian and a German dug from a rented garage at Matterhornstrasse 48 in Berlin - Zehlendorf an approximately 20 meter long tunnel with a diameter of only one meter into a sewer , followed this about 100 meters and dug a 50-meter-long tunnel to the Commerzbank branch, which was located at Breisgauer Straße 8, before it was relocated to the new buildings at Breisgauer Straße 2, directly at the Schlachtensee S-Bahn station , in 2011 .

Two of them pushed through its basement floor at 10:25 am on June 27, 1995, while the other four entered the bank through the door and robbed them. There they took 16 hostages and demanded a ransom of 17 million marks , a helicopter and a getaway car. The police completely surrounded the building, paid 5.62 million marks, and hoped to buy some hostages out of it. An ultimatum to the perpetrators expired at 3 a.m. At 3:43 a.m. after 18 hours, the police stormed the building and found all the hostages unharmed: the perpetrators had snatched the money, cracked 207 of the approximately 400 lockers and escaped through the tunnel they had dug. The exact amount stolen is unclear as there are no exact inventory lists about lockers. A total of around 16.3 million marks is assumed. The booty has not yet been completely found - only 5.3 million marks have been secured.

In total, the gang was eleven.

Police chief Hagen Saberschinsky ruled that the perpetrators had “worked with a high degree of sophistication, a certain professionalism, perhaps also ingenuity”. There were only initial traces that were left during the tunnel construction - the perpetrators were able to hide any evidence of their identity in the bank robbery.

role models

As early as 1929 there was a similar bank robbery in Berlin, in which the Sass brothers stole 2 million Reichsmarks .

A novel about Jerry Cotton was published in 1989 with the title "The Hostages of the Millionaire Gangsters", in which perpetrators in New York escaped through a tunnel. The later events in Berlin-Zehlendorf show clear parallels to the fictitious course of events.

Arrests

Two weeks after the attack, the 19-year-old Syrian car painter Moutaz Al Barazi ("Tunnel Toni"), who owned a workshop next to the aforementioned garage, was arrested. A discarded cigarette butt and the previous tenant of the garage (a brother of the main culprit) finally led the 60-strong “CoBa” commission on July 20, 1995 to track down three other accomplices; one day before they wanted to go abroad. A jumpsuit was found that was worn by one of the perpetrators in the attack. Al Barazi's half-brother was the gang leader and received a 13-year prison sentence. Four other accomplices received lesser sentences. The Lebanese Dergham Ibrahim received twelve years imprisonment, the German accomplice ten, and two confessed accomplices six and ten years. The other parties involved in the act could not yet be found.

Although two other helpers had been convicted in Lebanon , one of them (Ali Ibrahim, he volunteered shortly after the crime and was sentenced to three years in prison) was arrested again on the morning of June 2, 2008 in Karlskoga , Sweden. He was wanted by Interpol under an international arrest warrant and had gone into hiding in Örebro with a false identity (“Robi”) and started a family. Ali Ibrahim denied any involvement, but after his arrest was given a European arrest warrant by the Berlin public prosecutor and will be extradited. Since there is no agreement with Lebanon that prohibits double punishment ( ne bis in idem ), Ibrahim can be tried and convicted again in Germany.

Film adaptations

The ARD has filmed the bank robbery in July of 2007.

RTL filmed the bank robbery in 1996 under the title Die Tunnelgangster von Berlin .

On December 14, 2016, rbb television first showed a report in the series Offenders Victims Police in a three-part special series Spectacular Criminal Cases, in which the crime was presented primarily from the point of view of the police and bank employees.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ (untaxed assets)
  2. ↑ A tremendous roar . In: Der Spiegel . No. 27 , 1995 ( online ).
  3. ↑ Volume 1580
  4. ↑ Sonja Pohlmann: The almost perfect bank robbery An ARD documentary about the "Coup of Zehlendorf". Der Tagesspiegel , July 9, 2007, accessed on May 5, 2015 .
  5. ↑ 'The Coup of Zehlendorf' . Program information on the broadcast on the rbb website on June 11, 2017, accessed on June 13, 2017