An indictment that provides disturbing insights

On August 8, 2022 at 4:27 p.m., fate brings together five police officers and 16-year-old Mouhamed Dramé. On this day, one life ends and five others take completely new paths. The fatal operation is being heard at Dortmund District Court.

The large jury courtroom is bursting at the seams. Dortmund's district court is squeezed between Hamburger Strasse, which opens up the city to the eastern suburbs, and the Kaiserstraße district. Around 30 people have gathered at the back entrance on the main street three hours before the start of the trial. They wait in the December rain that falls on the other side of the vigil tent for Mouhamed Dramé. Perhaps 100 people have come to remember the Senegalese man who was killed in Dortmund's Nordstadt district on August 8, 2022. What happened back then is being heard in the building behind them. Five police officers have to answer for the death of the teenager who had arrived in Dortmund just a week earlier.

The opening statement by Christoph Krekeler, the lawyer for the main defendant Fabian S., gives a little insight into the life of the shooter. The defendant and his family were "very burdened" by the proceedings and everything had happened very quickly on August 8th. He was not the only one to perceive Dramé's steps as threatening at that moment. In fact, there was less than a second between the use of the Taser and the fatal shots. "In this situation, the color of Mouhamed Dramé's skin didn't matter to my client at all," says Krekeler. When the courtroom has emptied, the defense attorney repeats the sentences in the anteroom. Lawyer Lisa Grüter is standing a few meters away. She calls the statement "difficult" and is surprised that the "burden on the defendant's family" is at the top of the list. Then people disperse again.

The biggest trial since Sergej W.

An unusually large number of police lined Kaiserstraße hours before the start of the trial, with numerous tubs at the ends of the shopping street. Plainclothes officers wait outside a bakery to observe the scene. They don't get to see much. The weather, the pre-Christmas period and probably the day itself are not activating more people. The Justice4Mouhamed solidarity group is calling for donations for the family of the man who was killed. They should be able to attend the trial. It is not yet clear whether this will work. They are bracing themselves for a long, exhausting trial. The media representatives are buzzing around them.

Final statements are being taken outside the courtroom. The NRW state chairman of the police union, Michael Mertens, has arrived, court spokeswoman Nesrin Öcal stands in the middle of the anteroom and reports on what will be negotiated until mid-April. Lisa Grüter, the lawyer for the joint plaintiff, is also standing in front of the microphones and defense lawyer Thomas Feltes, who is also appearing for the joint plaintiff, has also arrived. It is a hustle and bustle. In Dortmund, it is the biggest trial since the one against Sergej W., who carried out an attack on the lives of Borussia Dortmund players in April 2017. The German-Russian had tried to blow up the team bus.

Judge considers allowing fewer visitors

Media representatives crowd onto the wooden benches in the large jury courtroom. A heavy chandelier casts light on the three benches that will play a role in the coming days of the trial. In front: Presiding Judge Thomas Kelm, on the window side the senior public prosecutor Carsten Dombert, the lawyer Grüter and defense lawyer Feltes. Opposite them, the five defense lawyers for the accused wait for the trial to begin. It takes time. Every single spectator at the trial is individually checked as a preventative measure and has to provide their personal details. A normal procedure for trials of such social interest, explains court spokeswoman Öcal.

When the defendants are ushered in, their faces shielded from public view by file folders, and the audience takes their seats, it is still ten minutes before the trial begins. Such is the interest in this trial that Judge Kelm wants to allow fewer spectators next time. People are sitting tightly packed in the courtroom. Some black people have come, others with a migration background, some people who are clearly recognizable as activists and others who are more in the camp of the accused.

There was only "one escape route"

They soon take off their file protection and sit there. Thomas H., the squad leader, with horn-rimmed glasses and a bald head, is accused of inciting his subordinates. They sit behind and next to him and listen, almost motionless, to what happened on August 8th and what has connected them to 16-year-old Mouhamed Dramé in this fatal way ever since. At 4:27 p.m. that day, they are called to a facility in Dortmund's Nordstadt district. There, the teenager from Senegal is sitting in a courtyard that is bordered on three sides. There is a church wall on two sides and a fence on another. Public prosecutor Dombert emphasizes this emphatically. There was only "one escape route".

Dramé holds a "standard kitchen knife" to his stomach, sitting with his back to the only opening in the courtyard. In quick succession, he is approached by two civilian officers. They are not recognizable as police officers. "Hey, hello, are you okay?" he is asked and then in Spanish "Ola, hasta bien? Paplos Espanol?". He doesn't react. By then, the ultimately fatal plan of action had long since been worked out by squad leader H.. Without prior request to put down the knife and without prior threat of pepper spray, one of the defendants sprays the victim for about six seconds.

Gunman faces up to ten years in prison

He wipes the pepper spray off his face, turns around and moves towards the police officers and the exit, the knife still in his hand. Then the Taser is used, one hits him in the lower abdomen and penis. Fabian S. then fires six shots from the submachine gun. He had previously agreed to bring it to the scene of the crime as a safety precaution. Dramé is hit in the stomach below the navel, he is hit in the face below the right cheekbone, on the back of the right shoulder and in the flexor side of the right forearm. One shot grazes his right trouser leg and one hits him. A short time later, the 16-year-old dies in hospital. The emergency services, alerted at the same time as the police, are unable to do anything.

When the indictment is read out, lawyer Krekeler, the defense attorney for the gunman Fabian S., speaks. He has not worked as a police officer since the incident and faces up to ten years in prison for "killing a person without being a murderer". The trial will continue on January 10, 2024.