Monday 29 November 2021
Sturm’s revision process starts
Ex-boxing world champion is back on trial
Felix Sturm is boxing world champion, later he ends up in prison: the athlete is convicted of tax offenses, doping and bodily harm. The Federal Court of Justice criticized parts of the judgment, now Sturm is back on trial.
In a revision process for tax evasion and attempted tax evasion, the professional boxer Felix Sturm is again before the Cologne district court. In April 2020, the district court sentenced Sturm, whose real name is Adnan Catic, to three years in prison. According to the judgment, the boxer withheld around one million euros from the German tax authorities in the years 2008 to 2010 and 2013. Sturm was also found guilty of doping and willful assault.
The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) overturned parts of the decision regarding the tax evasion conviction in the summer of 2021 and referred them back to the regional court for renegotiation. However, Karlsruhe had rejected the appeal against the doping verdict, which was also initiated by Sturm, and the verdict is legally binding. According to this, Sturm had taken the performance-enhancing drug stanozolol before the world championship match against the Russian Fyodor Tschudinow in Oberhausen in February 2016. Since he had fought against the rules, Sturm had also been convicted of willful bodily harm to the disadvantage of the Russian.
Sturm was originally charged with € 5.8 million in tax liabilities. However, the 42-year-old was acquitted for 2011 and 2012, and the proceedings relating to 2014 and 2015 were discontinued. This left a tax liability of around one million euros. Sturm sat in custody for eight months until December 2019. He was released on bail just before Christmas. A verdict is due to fall next Friday. “Why should I think about it”, Sturm said in an interview with ntv.de in 2020. “It comes as it comes. If the revision is rejected so that I have to go back to prison, I will begin imprisonment. Then I’ll have that behind me at some point. If the revision is accepted, I say thank God.”
In December 2020, Sturm made his comeback in the ring. Almost five years after his last fight, the 41-year-old ex-world champion defeated the twelve-year-old Timo Rost from Düsseldorf unanimously on points (110: 90, 99:91, 100: 93) in the Hamburg Universum Gym. “I made mistakes with regard to the tax laws in force in Germany. I was punished for this and I accepted them accordingly,” said Sturm in the context of the fight. In June he also won his second fight after his comeback: In the light heavyweight division, Sturm unanimously beat the previously undefeated Munich James Kraft on points. For the 42-year-old it was the 42nd victory in the 51st professional fight.