Verdicts were expected on Tuesday in the trial of the royal jewelry stolen from the Green Vault in the eastern German city of Dresden.
Dresden is one of the most spectacular heists in the country’s history.
At dawn on Nov. 25, 2019, two thieves broke into the Green Vault in Dresden’s Royal Palace museum via a window and smashed a display case with an axe.
Within minutes, they had made off with treasures dating back to the 17th and 18th centuries.
They had scooped the premises several times and had already taken apart a section of cast-iron guttering in order to be able to break in more easily later, prosecutors said.
Around 4,300 diamonds and other precious stones were stolen from 21 pieces of opulent jewelry stored at the palace.
This is one of the oldest buildings in Dresden and home to one of Europe’s largest collections of treasures.
Their value has been put at 113 million euros (122 million dollars).
But they were seen by the museum as priceless.
The damage caused in the break-in has been put at more than 1 million euros.
”The trial of the six men accused was due to end on Tuesday at 9:45 a.m. (0745 GMT),” according to a court spokesman.
During plea bargaining, four of them admitted to taking part in the crime and another to helping plan it.
The sixth person accused denied the prosecution’s allegations.
After preliminary talks in the course of the later plea bargain between the defence, the prosecution and the court, a large part of the loot was returned to the State Art Collections, partly damaged, in December.
Prosecutors say the break-in was organised by Berlin’s Remmo family.
They were the notorious organised crime gang of Arab heritage or clan as they were called in German media.
They were also held responsible for the theft of a gold coin weighing 100 kilograms from Berlin’s Bode Museum in 2017. (dpa/NAN)
