A German court has convicted five men over the theft of 18th-century jewels worth more than €113m from a Dresden museum in 2019, one of the most spectacular heists in the country’s modern history.
The men were given prison sentences of between four years and four months and six years and three months. One defendant was acquitted.
The Dresden state court ruled that the five men — aged 24 to 29 and all members of the same family — were responsible for the audacious break-in at the eastern German city’s Green Vault museum on 25 November 2019, and the theft of 21 pieces of jewellery containing more than 4,300 diamonds, with a total insured value of at least €113m (£98m).
After a trial that lasted 47 days and in which more than 100 witnesses gave evidence, the five men were convicted of particularly aggravated arson in combination with dangerous bodily injury, theft with weapons, damage to property and intentional arson.
The men started a fire shortly before the break-in to cut the power supply to street lights outside the museum, and also set a car ablaze in a nearby garage before fleeing to Berlin.
They were caught several months later in raids in Berlin.In January, a plea bargain was agreed between the defence, prosecution and court after most of the stolen haul – 31 individual pieces – were returned.
The plea bargain had been agreed to by four defendants, who subsequently admitted their involvement in the crime through their lawyers.
The fifth defendant also confessed, but only to the procurement of objects such as the axes used to make holes in the museum display case.
The prosecutor has defended the plea bargain as being key to the majority of the stolen objects being returned, though politicians and media on Tuesday complained that it had allowed too mild a sentence. (Guardian)
