After years of legal dispute over the villa of the Arab Remmo clan in Buckow, the building will be evacuated on Wednesday. At exactly 10:30 a.m., the bailiff entered the villa on behalf of the Neukölln district, accompanied by the police. This was reported by a reporter from the Berliner Zeitung on site. The front door was apparently unlocked and the villa was empty. 130 police officers were on duty. According to police chief Anja Dierschke, the operation went “smoothly”. “We are very relieved that there was no resistance,” said Dierschke.
According to the reporter, most of the twelve larger police cars that were parked in front of the villa that morning have already left. A battering ram was also available, but was not used. There was no sign of the Remmo family. “The house is in a very dilapidated condition,” said Christian Berg, press spokesman for the Neukölln district office. “We assume deliberate destruction.”
Police officers and personnel carriers during the evacuation operation in front of Remmo Villa in Buckow on Wednesday morning.Markus Waechter/Berliner Zeitung
The clan villa in Neukölln.Markus Waechter/Berliner Zeitung
Police officers make their way inside the villa, which was supposed to be handed over swept clean on Wednesday.Markus Waechter/Berliner Zeitung
The Remmos “wantonly destroyed” the Neukölln villa.Sophie Marie Schulz
When the police arrived, the front door was apparently not locked.Sophie Marie Schulz
More pieces of furniture left behind by the Remmo clan in front of the villa.Sophie Marie Schulz
A police officer stands at the entrance to the villa during the evacuation.Sophie Marie Schulz
Building rubble and various containers in the garden of the villa.Sophie Marie Schulz
The Remmo clan is said to have thrown furniture out of the window the day before the eviction.Markus Waechter/Berliner Zeitung
In addition to building rubble and furniture, the Remmo family also left broken objects in the garden.Markus Waechter/Berliner Zeitung
The Berlin police arrived with a battering ram, but it was not used.Markus Waechter/Berliner Zeitung
The floor was probably torn out, doors were broken, windows and railings in the entrance to the house were destroyed, according to Berg. The officers found a large pile of bulky waste and building rubble in the garden. In addition, another house was illegally built there, a type of bungalow, which has to be demolished. Security measures are now being implemented, said Berg.
A neighbor told the reporter on site that the residents of the villa had thrown all the furniture out of the windows on Tuesday. “It was brute force,” said the neighbor. The neighbor couldn’t say how many people lived in the house: “People were constantly coming in and out.” According to information from on site, the villa was said to have been cleared out on Tuesday.
The villa of #Remmo-Clans in the Neukölln district of Buckow are being taken care of at this moment by the @polizeiberlin cleared. The property was purchased with non-legal money. Twelve emergency vehicles are located at the building. We are at the #Eviction on site. #Berlin #Clans #Neukölln pic.twitter.com/C8TNPKjqG3
— Berliner Zeitung (@berlinerzeitung) March 20, 2024
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Eviction of the Remmo Villa in Berlin-Neukölln: operation planned for weeks
The operation had been planned for weeks, so the police had prepared for everything. It was not expected in advance that there would be any confrontations. Some windows were open Wednesday morning, others had their shutters drawn. The entrance was now completely surrounded by police officers. Pedestrians were no longer allowed to walk past the house.
Representatives of the extended family had tried until the very end to fight the eviction in court. However, the Neukölln district court rejected a so-called eviction protection application last week. The Berlin regional court decided in January that the family must vacate the house, thereby confirming a ruling by the Neukölln district court from April 2023. The district then called in the bailiff.
“This is a good day for the rule of law,” said the spokesman for the Berlin Police Union (GdP), Benjamin Jendro, on that the rule of law offers, in order to keep security authorities and the judiciary busy with the wrangling over the building.” Alt Buckow 37 is not an ordinary property, “but a prestige property that, in our view, can be used for charitable and social purposes, following the Italian model could be used for other purposes,” said Jendro.
Police officers with a battering ram on site in Berlin-NeuköllnSophie-Marie Schulz/Berliner Zeitung
Repeated police operations on the Remmo Villa property
The villa is among 77 properties that the Berlin public prosecutor’s office confiscated in 2018. The authorities are convinced that these were purchased with money from criminal transactions. The villa now legally belongs to the state of Berlin, and the Neukölln district is responsible for it as a municipality.
There were repeated police operations on the property. Most recently in January in connection with an attack on a policewoman on New Year’s Eve, after a 15-year-old from the family was hit by a police car on the street near the villa. A relative of the young people is said to have brutally attacked and seriously injured the policewoman in the car. Previous searches included, among other things, investigations into thefts.