Turkish gang Osmanen Germania appears in front of judge

The case against the Osmanen Germania (“Ottomans Germany”), the Erdoğan regime’s gang in Germany, started in Stuttgart on Monday.

The relationship between the AKP government and the Osmanen Germania (“Ottomans Germany”) gang, which had organized under the guise of a boxing club in 2014, had been on the agenda in Germany for a while now. The gang, engaged in weapons smuggling, human trafficking, drugs and attacks against Kurds, is finally seeing the inside of a courtroom today.

8 members of the gang appeared in front of a judge on Monday in the Youth Court in Stuttgart. The hearings are planned to continue until January 2019, and imprisoned gang leaders Mehmet Bağcı, Selçuk Şahin and Levent Uzundal are among the defendants.

Members and leaders of the gang are not on trial for their ties to the AKP regime, but rather the crimes they committed throughout 2016 and 2017 in the state of Baden-Württemberg.

The prosecutor accuses the gang with the attempted murder of a member who wanted to leave, causing bodily injury, and possession of a firearm without a permit. The indictment started to be read in Monday’s hearing, which was held in the Stammheim prison in Stuttgart under intense security precautions. The prosecution declared preliminary precautions, while avoiding to give details.

According to voice recordings published in the media last year, AKP MP close to Erdoğan Metin Külünk has transferred money several times to leaders of the Osmanen Germania gang for the purchase of firearms. The gang acquired several pistols and automatic weapons with this money, for which gang leaders Mehmet Bağcı and Selçuk Şahin had previously been arrested.

On March 13, 2018, in states of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Baden-Württemberg and Hessen, police units carried out searches in 41 residential and commercial spaces. Special operations units were also present in the simultaneous raids as the men were suspected to be armed.

But despite all the information and documents, the allegations against the gang leaders don’t include these. Despite police raids and operations, the gang still has some 400 members throughout Germany, most of whom are Turkish nationalists.