Key witness testified under police protection in the Salzburg Captagon trial
On the fifth day of the trial at the Salzburg Regional Court against 14 defendants for trading 13.8 million Captagon pills, the key witness described his involvement in the packaging of the so-called jihadist drug under police protection on Tuesday.
The 41-year-old Iraqi, who is in a relationship with the Arabic interpreter from the preliminary investigation, also incriminated family members of the 54-year-old main defendant. The process is scheduled for the end of January.
The defendants – 13 are at the trial – are said to be members of an international gang who smuggled the captagon tablets with an alleged sales value of around 40 million euros from Lebanon via Austria to Saudi Arabia in the period from June 2016 to March 2021. The charge by the Salzburg public prosecutor’s office is largely based on the information provided by the key witness.
A few weeks before the start of the trial, it became known that the Iraqi had entered into an intimate relationship with the non-certified interpreter during the preliminary investigation. In the three-year process, the woman translated thousands of telephone surveillance protocols and numerous interrogations of the accused, including the key witness. To the annoyance of the defenders, she is said to have been in a secret relationship with the Iraqi since June 2019.
The key witness says today that he has been living with the interpreter for a year and a half or two years. He can’t remember exactly when he first met her. He knows that he met her “while translating for the police”. That was in September 2019. When the presiding judge of the lay judge’s senate confronted him with the file situation and held against him that he had gone to the police for the first time on July 23, 2020 to testify, he replied that he cannot concentrate well on a date. He has been under pressure from defense lawyers for a month or two.
In any case, the key witness asserted that he did not speak to the interpreter about this case outside of the translation hours. He had received a diversion in the run-up to the trial. What he said was based on his own knowledge. “I’ve seen it all.” Today he said he came to Austria in 2015 and found a place to stay and work with the family with Lebanese roots in Bürmoos (Flachgau), whose pizzeria is said to have served as a transshipment point and warehouse for drugs.
The statements made so far by the key witness in the process also coincide with the content of the indictment. With the 28-year-old accused operator of the pizzeria, he stowed Captagon tablets in bought pizza ovens in the basement of the restaurant and covered them with films that prevented police dogs from sniffing out the drugs. One sack proved to be 3.5 kilos of drugs, six sacks fit in an oven. He couldn’t say how many ovens were in total with packaged tablets.
The accused 51-year-old mother of the pizzeria operator, with whom he had a relationship at the time, also helped with the packaging, “if six instead of four hands were necessary,” said the key witness. He did not incriminate some of the accused. He can’t tell if they knew about the drug business.
The tablets were sold in Saudi Arabia at around 50 to 70 times the price applicable in Lebanon, the Iraqi said. The first defendant father of the pizzeria operator, a hotelier in Tyrol, has taken over the management of the drug transhipment point in Austria. The main defendant and the 49-year-old fifth defendant from Vöcklabruck would have to take the first steps. The hotelier’s son just threw cash around, the key witness referred to the accused’s luxurious life.
Finally, he decided to go to the police and testify because he saw it as his duty for reasons of conscience, said the Iraqi. He was also afraid because he and his family had been threatened. “I’ve lived with them and I know what harm will come of them,” he said in the direction of the prosecution. When he first entered the drug warehouse in Bürmoos, dark days had come his way. The key witness was flanked by two uniformed police officers wearing face masks while he was being questioned. Several plainclothes policemen were in the hall. The suspects in custody were guarded by prison guards.
The defense lawyers of the 13 defendants present had declared at the start of the trial that they were not guilty. “Not a single tablet”, no takers and no cash were found. Several defense attorneys joined colleagues’ request today that the minutes that the interpreter had translated during the preliminary investigation may not be used in the trial. Some lawyers had also announced that their clients would then testify in the process when the minutes have been re-translated.
On December 10th, the court hired a generally licensed interpreter for the Arabic language to review and translate the telecommunications surveillance protocols. However, several defense lawyers had requested that all the accused interrogation and telephone surveillance protocols be completely re-translated, including those that two female relatives of the woman had translated.