The 14 suspects are said to be members of an international group of offenders that smuggled drugs from Lebanon to Austria from June 2016 to March 2021. But according to the defense, “not a single tablet”, no taker and no cash were found.
The defendants – eleven men and three women – aged 27 to 54 are charged with drug trafficking and the crime of the criminal organization. Most of them come from the Arab region or Lebanon and some of them are Austrian citizens. Many of them are related to each other, most recently worked in the catering trade and are innocent.
One accused, who is the only defendant not in custody, stayed away from the trial. Defense lawyers for the defendants present said today that they were not guilty.
Austria as a stopover
Austria apparently played the role of a stopover in this trade in Captagon pills – also known as the “jihadist drug” – which fall under the Narcotics Act. According to the investigation, the Captagon was manufactured in Lebanon and was destined for Saudi Arabia. The detour via Europe was only made because imports from the EU are apparently significantly less controlled in Saudi Arabia than goods imports from the Middle East.
The drugs were shipped to Ghent in Belgium via a front company, according to the prosecutor. From there, they were brought to Austria by forwarding agents and distributed to warehouses, with a pizzeria in Bürmoos (Flachgau) forming a central hub. There the addictive substances are said to have been hidden in industrial pizza ovens, washing machines and other electrical appliances and thus shipped to Saudi Arabia.
The head of the drug gang is a 60-year-old Lebanese who has gone into hiding. The drug has a stimulating effect similar to amphetamine and has often been linked to terrorist attacks. The production of the pills apparently only cost three or four cents, they were sold for three euros.
Interpreter in a relationship with key witnesses?
One piquant detail sparked heavy criticism from the defense today. The non-certified main interpreter in the investigation – she translated interrogation and telephone surveillance protocols – is said to have been in a secret relationship with the key witness since June 2019. The indictment is based in large part on the information provided by the Iraqi living in Salzburg. He is said to have admitted that he was involved in the drug business and received a diversion in advance.
The defense lawyers described the allegations as baseless. The focus of the counter-statements was the love affair between the key witness and the interpreter. “Everything she has translated is threatened with nullity,” said defense attorney Leopold Hirsch. He requested a new translation of all the minutes that had been translated by the interpreter. They are biased according to the code of criminal procedure.
Do hundreds of protocols have to be recompiled?
The other defense attorneys were in the same direction; there was also talk of the scandal and the untrustworthiness of the key witness. Attorney Kurt Jelinek announced a criminal complaint. There is a suspicion that the interpreter did not translate everything or correctly. The prosecutor had previously emphasized that the accuracy of the translation could be verified.
After the counter-statements, the presiding judge of the lay judge’s senate postponed the trial until tomorrow, Wednesday, to question the defendants. It has not yet announced whether the logs will actually be re-translated. That would significantly delay the process. In the investigation, which lasted around three years, around 200,000 telephone calls were tapped, most of them in Arabic, which were mainly translated by the interpreter, who has now come under criticism.
Source: Nachrichten
