According to Tagesspiegel information, Berlin officials are looking for a man convicted of murder who is associated with the Hells Angels. Koray T. did not return to the Tegel prison from an approved exit on Saturday. T. was serving an eight-year prison sentence there. He was sentenced in 2019 for fatal shots at the Kottbusser Tor in Kreuzberg. Because it has been in custody since the end of 2016, three years of this sentence are still open.
Investigators fear that T. could have fled abroad. After the act for which he was convicted in 2019, T., who was connected to Hells Angels, temporarily fled to Turkey. According to unconfirmed information, the exit from the Tegel prison was probably also approved because T. got along well with the social workers.
A spokesman for the Senate Department of Justice only confirmed that a 28-year-old prisoner was wanted. The police headquarters spoke of an immediately initiated search.
T. is said to have left the prison unaccompanied for the first time on August 26 in order to be present when his child started school. Prisoners have complained that a dangerous violent criminal has been granted this relaxation, while men convicted only of theft are sometimes not allowed to do so.
In September 2016, Koray T. shot a 32-year-old at Kottbusser Tor after he was said to have slapped him. How the previous dispute came about remained unclear during the trial. After the crime, Koray T. and his brother-in-law fled from Tegel Airport to Turkey.
There, it was said during the hearing, that he regretted the fatal shots and made his way to Germany. However, in December 2016, officials in Bulgaria arrested him and found false papers apparently issued in Turkey. T. was extradited to Berlin.
In court, his defense attorney said at the time: his client did not want to kill the 32-year-old, but wanted to prevent an attack on his brother-in-law in a scuffle. However, the court ruled that T. was not in a situation that would have entitled him to defend himself.
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Because of his tilidine and cocaine addiction, the judges recognized “reduced criminal responsibility”, which, among other considerations, led to the eight-year prison sentence. T. had previously been convicted of property crimes.
For several years, fewer crimes attributed to rocker fraternities have been registered in Berlin. Previously, the Hells Angels in particular had dominated the scene. In the so-called rocker war against the Bandidos, which were also founded in the USA, the Hells Angels were initially defeated.
In 2010, a particularly militant Bandidos branch led by Kadir Padir from Wedding joined the Hells Angels, who gained influence in the red-light district. Two years later, the then Senator for the Interior, Frank Henkel (CDU), banned this Hells Angels group. The order spoke of pimping, drug trafficking, robbery and attempted manslaughter.
Well-known men from the above-mentioned North Berlin wing of the Hells Angels were convicted of murder in 2019, and some big names from the scene had also fled to Turkey. A former Hells Angels boss from Cologne, who investigators count among the most influential red light figures in Germany, also resides there.
After reunification, more traditional, less conspicuous Hells Angels were active in East Berlin. According to the corresponding bans, they are also not allowed to show the rocker insignia typical of the scene in public.