200,000 phone calls in Arabic – translated by an interpreter who has long since been withdrawn from the trial because of a liaison with an Iraqi key witness. Now, thousands of audit logs will have to be recompiled. The big drug trial is taking longer than planned.
For a short time it got hectic in the large courtroom of the regional court. One of the 14 defendants fell faint. Paramedics took care of the man, his questioning had to be canceled first. Together with three other accused, he then testified – the court did not really learn anything new on Wednesday. The 14 accused – almost all of them with Lebanese and Arab roots – largely deny the allegations or refused to testify in the preliminary proceedings. The prosecution is tough: As reported, all defendants are said to be part of a “highly professional drug group”. The gang is said to have smuggled 13.8 million Captagon tablets – also known as the jihadist drug – from Lebanon by ship to Belgium and by truck to Austria. Hidden in 408 plastic rolls of 34,000 tablets each. According to the indictment, distribution was via a pizzeria in Bürmoos. The perpetrators are said to have hidden the drugs in pizza ovens and tumble dryers. After that, the pills came to Saudi Arabia. The head of the gang is said to be a man who is hiding in the Turk. The investigation lasted several years. The mega-process could now drag on much longer than planned. Because around the interpreter, who translated thousands of phone calls between the defendants for the police, there is still excitement: The woman was in love with the key witness from Iraq, on whose statements large parts of the prosecution are based. She kept the liaison a secret, so she was thrown out of the process. All lawyers have now requested the re-translation of all telephone surveillance logs. It’s about 200,000 phone calls. Nikolaus Klinger
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