It was supposed to be a long-planned arrest, but the police operation ended in disaster!
Since Friday, January the 29th, Mahmut H. has been on trial before the Hamburg Regional Court. The 29-year-old German, who according to the public prosecutor’s office was wanted on three arrest warrants, is alleged to have injured a police officer (57) so severely during his arrest in February 2020 that he died a few days later in hospital. The charge is bodily harm causing death.Police investigators from Itzehoe had wanted to arrest Mahmut H. in the Hamburg district of Lurup on February the 25th 2020: The wanted man had shortly before advertised a vehicle on Ebay classified ads, arranged to meet the police investigators, who pretended to be interested buyers, at a bus stop on Lurup Hauptstraße.
Then police started to arrest him: One of the officers jumped into Mahmut H.’s car through the open passenger door, and a scuffle started.
Meanwhile, the 29-year-old accelerated, turned his VW luxury limousine Phaeton across the four-lane street Lurup Hauptstraße and collided head-on with the BMW of a Hamburg special investigator from State Criminal Police Office 23, pushing the vehicle twelve metres across the road.
The 57-year-old police chief inspector of the State Criminal Police Office, Klaus-Ulrich H., who was sitting in the BMW, was so seriously injured that he died eight days later in hospital. His colleague suffered minor injuries.
Mahmut H. had already committed his first offence at the age of 14. In 2017, he was sentenced to nine months in prison for assault, forgery and driving without a licence. Today he has a total of 14 previous convictions.
According to the police, he was uninjured in the crash.
According to a court spokesperson, it will have to be clarified in the course of the trial exactly how the collision occurred.
In court, the accused affirms: “I thought it was a robbery. The prospective buyers came closer, suddenly a man jumped frantically into the car. He attacked me in a jump without saying anything. I thought I was in a bad film. I don’t know why I took the turn.”
When asked by the judge if the police officers had not identified themselves, the accused only said: “No, not that I know of.”
After the incident, the Hamburg police reported that Mahmut H. had continued to accelerate after the collision and had pushed the civilian police car even further in front of him.
The death of the officer had caused great consternation among the Hamburg police.
The trial will continue.