Twins Score Over the German Legal System

Admittedly this isn’t really traveller info… but it is the kind of local news that you want to tell people about, and it makes for a funny anecdote to take home with you.

In January this year the department store KaDeWe was broken into. Sometime on that weekend thieves got into the building over a portico and into the ground floor. Once there they stole jewellery from the company Christ, who had a newly opened store-in-store, to the value of several million Euro. Demonstrating the brilliant security in the luxury store, the robbery was only noticed early Monday morning.

Over the last month and a half the police managed to nab a couple of the thieves. Well, they managed to nab at least ONE of the thieves based on DNA found at the crime scene. Unfortunately the thief in question is an identical twin.

Because the DNA results doesn’t differentiate which twin it was (and it seems they believe it was just one of them), two days ago the Berlin police had to let both of them go. The German legal system states that in a crime, the involvement of each individual must be proven in detail. There are tests which can tell the difference, but these are new, complicated and not yet accepted by the courts.

So the brothers O. (we haven’t been told their surnames, although their first names are Hassan and Abbas) are out and happy, thanking the German legal system for their freedom. Oh, and the score of millions of dollars? Still out there, somewhere.

More information on PlanetEye: Kaufhaus des Westens