Criminal court opens verdict against two suspected bombers
Published: Monday, Nov 27th 2023, 04:50
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The Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona will hand down its verdict this afternoon in the case of the two suspected Basel bombers. The Office of the Attorney General has requested prison sentences of eight and ten years respectively.
The men are accused of carrying out an explosives attack on a private house in the Bruderholz district of Basel at the end of March 2022. This resulted in property damage totaling 170,000 francs. No people were injured. Both defendants denied the crime during the main hearing at the end of October. They made extensive use of their right to refuse to testify.
The Office of the Attorney General of Germany (OAG) also accused the 25-year-old and the soon-to-be 28-year-old of traveling to Stuttgart/Germany in June 2022 to buy two kilograms of plastic explosive C4 and a weapon. However, the alleged seller was a German investigator, so the young men were arrested.
The indictment assumes that the explosives were to be used in four further attacks on the homes of wealthy families. The aim was to build up pressure in order to extort one million francs in bitcoins in each case.
Bragging about the deed
The BA has charged the two men with endangering with explosives and poisonous gases with criminal intent, damage to property, attempted manufacture, concealment, transfer of explosives and poisonous gases as well as criminal preparatory acts with regard to intentional homicide, murder and grievous bodily harm.
The younger defendant is considered by the BA to be the calculating planner who, for example, had already set up the depot for the Bitcoins. The 28-year-old was portrayed as the man responsible for the implementation, who liked to brag to third parties. In a wiretapped telephone conversation, he told a friend that he and his co-defendant had carried out the attack in the Bruderholz district. (Case SK.2023.33)
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