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Posts Tagged ‘Bank Robbery’

MayDay – The Hague: Solidarity with the anarchists accused of bank robbery in Aachen (Netherlands, Germany)

Tuesday, May 2nd, 2017

Today on MayDay, the international day of struggle against capitalism and oppression four banners were hanged in The Hague, the Netherlands, and more than a 1500 flyers scattered in solidarity with the anarchists accused of bank robbery in Aachen, Germany.

In 2015 and 2016 three anarchist comrades, one from Amsterdam and two from Barcelona, have been imprisoned after the prosecution office of Aachen (Germany) issued warrants for their arrests on accusation of bank robbery in the same city. The comrade from Amsterdam, charged with a robbery in 2013, has been acquitted in December 2017; she is currently awaiting the revision appeal. The trial of the two other comrades concerns a robbery in 2014 and began on the 23rd January 2017; their court case will continue for the coming months.

We are not interested in knowing whether the comrade is actually responsible for the bank robberies or not. Expropriation is an ethically just and politically legitimate practice, a method of struggle that is part of the history of all revolutionary movements.

We want them free! Rage and solidarity!

more pictures

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Posted in Autonomy

Summary of session 17 in the Aachen bank robbery case (Germany)

Thursday, April 27th, 2017

The session on the 24th of April barely took three hours. It begun with the attempt to “coordinate” the agendas so that the biometrical expert would be able to testify. It was expected that this would happen on the 25th of April, but on this day the expert is not able to come, and since the prosecution has insisted that he/she is an important witness, the dates of the court have been changed. It seems now that this expert will testify on the 12th of May (although this still needs to be confirmed). Tomorrow’s session is cancelled, and for the moment there are three new sessions: on the 31st of May, and the 7th and 13th of June.

The session consisted of reading a part of the file, concerning the phones which were confiscated during the house raids: corresponding numbers in the contact lists of various phones have been compared, without having been able to read the conclusions of the police, since the lawyers prevented this (protected by some German law). A phone bill of one of the accused was also read out; there are some text messages which do not appear on the bill, and the prosecutor has assumed that these are roaming messages, although the lawyers have suggested that these could be advertising messages (which also do not appear on bills). Furthermore, according to the policy of Vodafone, data needs to be destroyed after one year, which implies that the information of this phone bill (provided by the Spanish police) cannot be used and has been obtained illegally. Because of all this, the prosecution and the judge have requested that an expert of the police will come as a witness in order to explain on the one hand how they have come by these data, and on the other if the aforementioned text messages are roaming messages or not. This will happen during the next session on the 28th of April.

Finally a letter was read out, sent from Berlin to one of the comrades accompanied by a poster about a talk concerning the historical relation between anarchists and expropriation. Various claims of acts in solidarity with our imprisoned comrades, which happened last week, were also read out.

The next session will be on the 28th of April at 09.00
https://solidariteit.noblogs.org

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Posted in Prison Struggle

A report of the trial of anarchist Marios Seisidis – Athens (Greece)

Monday, April 17th, 2017

Comrade Marios Seisidis has been acquitted of six of the robberies that he had been accused of but was found guilty of the bank heist at Solonos street and three consecutive ‘attempted murder’ charges (concerning the bank guard and two police officers).
He has been sentenced to 36 years imprisonment in total. The court did not accept the defendant’s lawyer’s request to get a penalty suspension until the second degree court nor did it accept any attenuating circumstances for Marios Seisidis. Once again the vengeful tactics of the judicial system against our comrade were more than obvious.
It was encouraging that lots of comrades were present in the courthouse where they protested the court’s decision with slogans against the judges.
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What is the crime of robbing a bank compared with the crime of founding one.
Bertolt Brecht

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BANKS ARE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, THOSE WHO MAKE THEM FUNCTION ARE TERRORISTS IN THE TRUE SENSE OF THE WORD
FOR THE SABOTAGE OF THE EXISTENT BY ALL THOSE WHO ARE NOT AFRAID TO REJECT DOOM-STRICKEN SECURITY AND VENTURE INTO THE UNKNOWN.

Anarchists in London

via actforfree

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Posted in Prison Struggle

Update on the trial against accused anarchist bank robbers – Aachen (Germany)

Monday, April 17th, 2017

13th of April 2017

If reason is a compass, passions are the winds
Alexander Pope

Today marks one year since our comrade was arrested, when she was kidnapped by the Mossos d’Esquadra on the 13th of April 2016 in an joint operation with the German police. At the moment she is held in preventive arrest in the prison of Cologne, while the court case against her and another comrade (in the prison of Aachen) is in full course. They are accused of having robbed a branch of the Pax-Bank in Aachen in November 2014.

Furthermore, the comrade from Amsterdam that was acquitted last December from having expropriated a branch of the Aachener Bank in 2013 is still awaiting the decision of whether the revision requested by the prosecutor will be accepted or not.

As this court case has unfolded we have been able to clearly see the use of all the mechanisms of control that the repressive apparatuses of the State have at their disposal (intercepted telephone calls, police tails, exchange of DNA databases, recordings of security cameras, biometric information, various university experts assisting the forensic laboratories, collaboration between functionaries of various States, etc.) to secure the “normal functioning” of a society which we loathe. A society based on capitalist domination and oppression, the control of all aspects of our lives, the consumerist alienation and the misery of the majority which benefits a few privileged ones. It is of little interest to us whether the accused are responsible or not for what is attributed to them; those who challenge the logics of private property and exploitation and risk their freedom for a more complete life have all our complicity. We also do not care about their categories of innocent and guilty. In order to maintain the social peace, power first and foremost points at some “usual suspects”, and their punishment serves an example for all the potential subversive factors that in their moments could oppose the System. And with the permanent threat of “having a record, being surveilled, processed and imprisoned”, the State attempts to break the connections of solidarity between rebellious hearts that in the face of the imposition of borders and bars recognize themselves in the same struggle towards freedom.

Neither innocent nor guilty! Rebellious and international solidarity!
Our comrades will not feel alone in the last phase of the trial! May they feel our rebellious heat and love! For the destruction of the banks, prisons and the society that needs them!

Some anarchists, 13 April 2017.

solidariteit.noblogs.org

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Posted in Prison Struggle

International call out April 17-23, 2017 for decentralized actions in solidarity with comrades accused of bank-robbery in Aachen (Germany)

Thursday, March 16th, 2017

In 2015, a comrade from Amsterdam was arrested. She was accused of having participated in a robbery in 2013 against the Aachener bank in Aachen. After a few months spent in preventive and several weeks of trial, she was finally acquitted and released. Nevertheless, it can be assumed that the Aachen Prosecutor’s Office will appeal this verdict and go to the revision court.

In April and June 2016, two other comrades, this time from Barcelona, were arrested and incarcerated by the spanish state, accused by the same prosecution office of having participated in another bank robbery. The two were then extradited to germany in June 2016, where they have since been under the U-Haft regime (investigative preventive prison). The trial against them began in January 2017 in the Aachen Justice complex and it is scheduled to run until May 22, 2017.
(more…)

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Posted in Autonomy

‘Down with patriarchy: On the social, racist & patriarchal problems faced by women in prison’ – Letter from imprisoned anarchist comrade (Germany)

Thursday, March 9th, 2017

Here we publish a letter from our anarchist comrade who is locked up in a German prison, in Köln, since several months. She is accused of carrying out a bank robbery in Aachen and is already facing the trial. She wrote this letter in the context of the 8th of March, International Day of Women’s Struggle.

Down with patriarchy: On the social, racist & patriarchal problems faced by women in prison

It is generally well known that German society is rife with inequality. The upper classes are secure and cared for, they have no existential concerns and, despite all the wider problems of the world, they are able to offer their children a promising future which is not available to the under classes. Whilst a small minority of people are able to get richer, the majority are left to exist on the bare minimum, working for a shitty low wage and constantly being pushed towards pointless consumption so that the profit driven system that we live in can continue to function. (more…)

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Posted in Prison Struggle

An evening in solidarity with those accused of bank robberies in Aachen (Germany)

Wednesday, January 25th, 2017

Faced with an apparatus of repression that is developing ever more suffocating forms within a context of on-going technocratic and scientific mania, it is easy to fall into a state of inertia.

The aim of this repression, achieved through permanent technological armament, the development of research and studies in the field of DNA and video analysis, and the accumulation and evaluation of data of any sort, is to impose itself on us as undefeatable and inevitable.

We are led to believe it is impossible to avoid the total surveillance, acquisition, and storage of data. To counter and overcome this fallacy of total control, we must approach the situations in which we struggle with continued analysis and reflection. We have to seek and share ways to meet these developments on battlegrounds of attack, solidarity and self-organization. (more…)

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Posted in Autonomy

Den Haag: ATM machines demolished in solidarity with the anarchists accused of bank robberies in Aachen (Netherlands)

Sunday, January 22nd, 2017

Last night we demolished 9 ATM machines in Den Haag, the Netherlands, in solidarity with the the anarchists accused of bank robberies in Aachen, Germany. Their court case is set to begin on January 23rd 2017, and will take around 26 days spread over a 5 months.

We are not interested in knowing whether the comrades are actually responsible for the bank robberies or not. Expropriation is an ethically just and politically legitimate practice, a method of struggle that is part of the history of all revolutionary movements.

We want them free! Love, rage and solidarity!
Destroy all banks! Fire to the prisons!

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Posted in Direct Action

Call for solidarity with imprisoned anarchist comrades on trial for bank robbery – Jan 23 (Germany)

Monday, January 2nd, 2017

The anarchist comrades accused of participating in the expropriation of a bank office in Aachen in the month of November 2014 are still imprisoned in Germany awaiting trial that will start on January 23rd 2017. The dutch comrade, also judged for expropriation of a bank office on the same territory, is free at the moment, although the prosecutor has appealed the decision after the judge granted acquittal.

From Solidaritat Rebel, we want them to feel our solidarity for it to cross borders, bars and walls, and send them all our strength and complicity.
We want to unmask and point out three important protagonists responsible for the kidnapping of our comrades.

1) The prosecution: Pax Bank and its partners

The bank offices where the expropriations were carried out belong to Pax Bank and Aachener Bank – ever since its founding by priests in Cologne in WWI – linked to the catholic church and recently also to the arms trade. While preaching humility, morals and ethics, they fill their pockets selling weapons in wars, for which they later ask to be prayed for. Another proof of the unbreakable alliance between Church and Capital. (more…)

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Posted in Prison Struggle

Comrade from Amsterdam accused of a bank robbery of 2013 in Aachen is acquitted (Germany)

Sunday, December 11th, 2016

On the 8th of December the court acquitted the comrade from Amsterdam accused of a bank robbery of 2013 in Aachen.

Over 60 people were present in court, to show their support. The judge refused the rough indications argumented by the prosecution that aimed to prove the presence of the comrade in the bank on that morning more then 3 years ago.

However, the prosecution has already announced their recourse to the revision court. This means that a judge now will revise the whole court case to see if there were any procedural mistakes or incoherence with the judges reasoning for his decision. In case this court finds any errors, the trial will have to be re-done in the court of Aachen, but by a different judge. If this recourse fails, these charges and juridical procedure will be closed.

However, there are two comrades still in pre-trial detention with charges for a bank robbery that was committed in 2014. Their trial will begin at the end of January.

We send strength and courage to the comrades inside, may they feel the solidarity through the concrete walls and iron bars.

https://solidariteit.noblogs.org

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Posted in Prison Struggle

Tasos Theofilou: Open letter on the commencement of his trial at the court of appeal (Greece)

Thursday, December 8th, 2016

On November 21st, after a nine-month postponement, my trial commences at the court of appeal. It’s been two years since the completion of my trial at the court of first instance, when I was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment for the charges of common complicity to homicide and robbery in connection with the events on Paros island on 10/8/2012. I was acquitted of participation in CCF as well as of direct perpetration of homicide by a majority opinion. It was a political (not judicial) compromise and a result of conflict between the manipulation of this particular case by the police in cooperation with the mainstream media during the first days after my arrest, on the one hand, and the lack of any evidence, along with the solidarity expressed by the audience and the reaction of independent media, on the other. Thereof emerged the temporary Solomonic solution of my partial acquittal of the charges, deferring the prospect of a conclusive decision until a trial at the court of appeal.

Apart from the appeal initiated by myself, in which I upheld a full acquittal of all charges, there was also one more appeal, as of right, initiated by a gentleman called Δράκος [Dragon] –namely, a public prosecutor whose surname obviously adds further symbolism to the witch-hunt orchestrated by the Counter-terrorism Service. Eventually, the division of opinion between the presiding judge, Mr. Hatziathanasiou, – who voted for my conviction for all charges- and the two other members of the court – who chose the more moderate option that eventually prevailed- made room for further manipulation. (more…)

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Posted in Prison Struggle

Aachen Bank Robberies Case: Trial report and announcement of the date of the verdict (Germany)

Sunday, December 4th, 2016

Aachen: 1/12 update and announcement of date of the verdict

Today, 1/12 was the final day of trial for the presentation of the evidence for or against the comrade from Amsterdam accused by the prosecution of Aachen of a bank robbery that took place in July 2013 in the same city.

This means that on the next court date (5/12) both the defense and the prosecution will argument their pleas, marking the conclusion of this court case. Today the judge said that the verdict could already be on Monday 5th December, but he spoke about the possibility that the two judges and the two jurors could also take more time to deliberate and pronounce the verdict on Thursday 8th. Both court dates are scheduled to begin at 9:30, thus, for anyone wanting to be present, remember that the lines and extra controls could take up to 45 minutes to get through. (Be there latest at 8:45!!)

Since the last update an other carousel of experts and police officers have proudly fulfilled their dutiful collaboration to this repulsive judicial circus. (more…)

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Posted in Prison Struggle

“Hands Off!” – Soli-zine for imprisoned alleged anarchist bankrobber comrades in Aachen case (Germany)

Saturday, November 5th, 2016

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Posted in Library

A few notes on media and repression (Netherlands)

Wednesday, August 31st, 2016

Via Actforfree:

In the course of awaiting the processes of several anarchists that are accused of having robbed banks in Aachen in 2013 and 2014, the prosecution office of Aachen, Germany, and their obedient voice, the media, use every chance available to advance their investigation. Whether it is on a juridical or a more subtle mediatic level, all these expressions are different tentacles of the same mechanism of repression.

As usual the mainstream media are eager to get a “good” story by all means necessary, pervertedly scrutinizing people’s lives regardless of any ethics. They therefore do not hesitate in aiding the prosecution in spreading their fantastical tales. We have read these without much surprise – this is what journalists do after all –, have watched the hysterical spectacle that is being created around the implicated. Not being surprised however does not mean that we do not feel the need to clarify a few things that may have become blurred in the midst of this incessant stream of written and televised vomit.

After having ejaculated several articles in which the accused were portrayed according to the image the prosecution is trying to spread, the media has now decided it is time to create their own story. A rumour came to us through the grapevine that a certain Dutch journalist has posted a request on Indymedia asking for information concerning one of the accused. (more…)

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Posted in Social Control

Barcelona: Another comrade detained and extradited for the case of bank expropriations in Aachen (Catalunya)

Saturday, August 20th, 2016

Tuesday, June 21 at dawn, the Mossos d’Esquadra Corps [Catalan Police] kicked down the door of the house of an anarchist comrade of Barcelona, where he lived with his companion and other housemates. All were awakened by guns pointed on them and were handcuffed for hours while police raided and devastated the home, located in the neighbourhood del Eixample.

Eventually, the comrade was arrested and transferred to Madrid, where the National Court ordered his detention on the basis of a European arrest warrant issued by the prosecutor of Aachen, accusing him of having participated in the expropriation of a branch of Pax Bank that took place in November 2014.

It is for this same action that the comrade arrested on April 13 in Carmel is also in prison. In this case, however, the police decided not to use the staging and media spectacle it had used during the April operation, not issuing any press release and not notifying the media of the operation.

According to what we have been able to find out, the arrest warrant is based on the supposed coincidence between a trace of genetic material found in the Pax Bank in Aachen and a DNA sample that Mossos had taken from the comrade, simulating a BAC control for alcohol. During this false control, the police got him to blow into a breathalyzer and kept the plastic tip to extract the genetic profile of the comrade from the remaining saliva. (more…)

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Posted in Prison Struggle