Stuttgart Regional Court - Mourners allegedly took revenge after attack
It almost sounds like a frenzy. They strike again and again, as the prosecutor describes it. According to the indictment, they kick their victim, who is already unconscious, and one of them jumps on the bleeding man's head. Until they are dragged away from the half-smashed body. It is clear that the five men want revenge. Just a few minutes earlier, the now helpless victim, as part of a rival group, is said to have hurled a hand grenade at the hostile mourners, injuring 15 people and only preventing an even bigger bloodbath with a lot of luck.
Climax of the gang feud
The bloody incident on June 9 in the Neckar Valley is considered the climax of a gang rivalry that has kept the police around Stuttgart on tenterhooks for months. According to the public prosecutor's office, the suspected grenade thrower belongs to a group from the Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen and Göppingen area. According to investigators, the mourners and the five men now on trial are affiliated with another group from the Esslingen area.
The security precautions at the start of the trial are enormous, with dozens of police officers on duty on Thursday. Smiling, the five men aged between 19 and 21 enter the courtroom of the juvenile chamber in Stuttgart district court, one of them gives a thumbs-up to friends and relatives sitting in the rows of spectators. The charges are serious: attempted manslaughter, grievous bodily harm, illegal possession of weapons - at the end of the trial, which will last several months, the possibility of several years in prison is by no means ruled out.
Enormous brutality
According to the indictment, the brutality with which the men grabbed and beat up the alleged hand grenade thrower as he fled is immense: they dragged the 23-year-old, who has been on trial for attempted murder himself since last Thursday, out of the cab that was already moving, threw the Iranian to the ground, kicked and punched him repeatedly, as the public prosecutor quoted from the indictment. One of them jumps on his head with full force, another "jumped and kicked the victim's face so hard with his shod foot that his shoe burst", the prosecutor continued.
The indictment omits only a few details of what the investigators have gathered. According to the indictment, the men briefly let go when they heard sirens, but they are said to have beaten their victim again when they realized that the ambulance was coming instead of the expected police. And even the paramedics can't help at first, but have to protect themselves from the angry group and barricade themselves in the ambulance.
The critically injured man is flown to hospital with severe craniocerebral trauma, a broken jaw and broken ribs. The five young men - two of German, two of Turkish and one of Georgian nationality - had accepted the death of the suspected grenade thrower in their frenzy of violence, the prosecutor accuses them.
Further trial next week
The violence in Altbach near Esslingen is just one chapter in the long history of bloody feuds in the greater Stuttgart area. People have been shot at repeatedly. There have been incidents in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen, in Asperg in the Ludwigsburg district and in Eislingen in the Göppingen district, among others. On Thursday next week (December 21), the regional court will also hear the case against two men who allegedly fired shots at a shisha bar from a moving car in Plochingen last April. The owner of the bar near the train station was hit by a bullet and slightly injured. According to the State Office of Criminal Investigation, 52 arrests have been made so far.
Little prospect of an end to the violence
There are no signs of peace between the gangs, on the contrary: as the five accused men are taken out of the district court one by one in police cars, around two dozen waiting young men applaud them in front of the building, tightly secured by police officers.
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- The police in Stuttgart and surrounding areas have been monitoring a prolonged gang feud, with the most recent incident occurring in the Neckar Valley on June 9.
- On trial are five men from the Esslingen area, accused of attempted manslaughter, grievous bodily harm, and illegal weapon possession.
- The incident is considered the climax of the rivalry between groups, which also involved the throwing of a hand grenade by a man affiliated with the Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen and Göppingen area.
- The brutality shown towards the alleged grenade thrower was immense, with the men dragging him out of a moving taxi, beating him, and even jumping on his head.
- The five men, aged between 19 and 21, entered the courtroom with a light-hearted attitude, smiling and giving thumbs-up, but their charges are severe, with years in prison a possibility.
- The public prosecutor's office in Stuttgart is responsible for handling the case, and the trial at the Stuttgart Regional Court is expected to last several months.
- The violence in the Stuttgart area has resulted in numerous incidents, including shootings and injuries, and the German police have made 52 arrests in connection to the ongoing criminality.
Source: www.stern.de
