Around 50 spectators found their way into courtroom E.006 of the criminal justice center in Nuremberg. But at first they see nothing of what is happening. 17 cameramen lined up between them and the dock where two men were seated at 9:26 a.m. Ugur T. strolls in first, his white shirt a little tight and he has a red notepad tucked under his arm. The 48-year-old nods to his two defenders and looks interestedly into the cameras through his narrow-rimmed, square glasses. As if he had nothing to hide. What can’t be said about Dejan B., black suit, white shirt, sky blue tie. The 50-year-old hides his face behind a file folder, sunglasses and a black surgical mask.
The two men are charged in a matter that was initially a missing person case, became a criminal case for the police within a day and, from the prosecutor’s point of view, has long since become a murder case. Dejan B. and Ugur T. are said to have killed the heavily pregnant Alexandra R., then 39 years old, on December 9, 2022 because of a dispute over money from joint real estate transactions. Despite huge efforts, the police have not yet found her body. Harald Straßner, who represents the brother of the missing person as a co-plaintiff, does not believe that the trial will change anything. “But it creates the basis for a conviction. I firmly believe that there will be a conviction as charged,” he says.
In addition to the alleged murder, this includes allegations of communal hostage-taking, communal abortion and communal computer fraud. Dejan B. is also charged with two counts of attempted coercion.
The indictment, read out by senior public prosecutor Alexandra Hussennether, is twelve pages long. In it she explains in detail what preceded the alleged murder. The Bosnian Dejan B. and the Romanian-born Alexandra R. had been a couple since 2007. He is said to have cheated on her and lived mainly with his fiancée without R’s knowledge.
While Hussennether describes this and the progress of the case, Dejan B. leafs through his files with a look that says: This can’t be true. He looks skeptical, his hand on his chin, a thinker’s pose, his forehead furrowed, as if he were looking for a mistake between all the lines. Three seats away, his suspected accomplice Ugur T. is balancing a ballpoint pen in his hands, his gaze wandering around the hall, lost in thought. Neither of them seem nervous, on the contrary: they seem somewhat confident during this presentation by the public prosecutor, which is brimming with accusations against them.
There is also said to have been a threat of kidnapping
For years, Dejan B., who has had a foster daughter with R. since 2020, is said to have used the assets of the well-paid Postbank employees – initially with their consent – to purchase real estate. Because he himself had a relevant criminal record, with the help of a company whose business was officially run by Ugur T. After her separation from B. in March 2022, Alexandra R. cut off the flow of money, whereupon he threatened her and, among other things, announced that he would kidnap their foster daughter (charge: attempted coercion). “He threatened her not to mess with him because he had escaped from a prison camp in Serbia when he was 18 during the Bosnian War,” says the prosecutor. R. then fled to a women’s shelter; her ex-partner was no longer allowed to approach her because of a contact ban.
In order to become liquid again, the men are said to have obtained a so-called enforcement order in the amount of 784,660.82 euros against the woman (charge: computer fraud). She took legal action against it; the decisive date was scheduled for the week after her disappearance. From the prosecutor’s point of view, the court hearing no longer took place because the men were said to have ambushed Alexandra R. in front of a daycare center in Schwabach on the morning of December 9th, followed her to one of her properties nearby and gagged her there with duct tape. Alexandra R., says Hussennether, was “in fear of death.”
The men are said to have killed her later “in an unknown way” – either in a garage a good 30 kilometers away in Hilpoltstein. Or afterwards in a forest next to the A8 motorway near the Upper Bavarian community of Irschenberg. In any case, in the garage, the public prosecutor is certain, R. was forced by the men to withdraw their complaints because of the threat from B. and in the dispute over the money. A corresponding letter was received by the Nuremberg judiciary a few days later.
As expected, the defendants remained silent about the allegations at the start of the trial, and – in addition to a few formalities – the indictment was read out on the first of 37 days of trial at the Nuremberg-Fürth regional court. The public prosecutor’s office has named more than 100 witnesses, as well as ten experts, in order to convince the court that the men were responsible. This includes, for example, a handwriting expert. This should evaluate the content of the letter in which Alexandra R. withdrew the complaints against the men. The trial continues on Thursday, when evidence will begin.