Aras T. has a world title in bodybuilding to his name, and the 33-year-old also seems to be a real family man. At least, according to his chat history, he maintained close “relative” contacts with “Uncle Netherlands”, “Uncle Bulgaria” and not to forget: “Uncle Anabol”. District judge Jakob Schmidkonz, however, was convinced that Aras T. ordered doping substances from these men, ran a brisk trade from Munich, and also injected his own muscles with illegal anabolic steroids. He therefore sentenced the confessed “pumper” to a prison sentence of two years and three months.
Aras T. is rather short, his pale face framed by a dark beard and a neatly drawn dark hairline. In a video online you can see him posing at a bodybuilding competition, his body covered in mountains of muscle, no, an entire mountain range. “Tighten up,” calls out a spectator, and Aras T. smiles at the audience.
A few upper arm muscles still press against Aras T.’s white shirt, but not as many. According to defense attorney David Mühlberger, his client has serious health problems: heart problems, diabetes, visual impairments, suicidal thoughts. The consequences of 20 years of doping. At the age of twelve, T. started playing sports in his homeland of Iraq and immediately started using doping substances. “As far as I know, that’s allowed there,” says Mühlberger. He then continued in Germany and won titles as a professional in bodybuilding. “Nobody becomes world champion without doping,” says the lawyer.
You are in the middle of a legal discussion that Judge Jakob Schmidkonz wants to hold in public and not in the back room. The public prosecutor accuses Aras T. of trafficking in doping substances in 16 cases as well as possession. She says that the defendant knew very well that he was acting illegally; after all, he placed his orders with Bulgarian dealers via indirect routes and also concealed the payment method, for example through his partner.
What made matters worse was that the court suspended the arrest warrant against Aras T. so that he could travel to Iraq for his father’s funeral. However, he didn’t come back on the agreed date. An investigator says that T.’s environment was monitored and they found out that he had probably entered Germany via Switzerland and was living with his partner. But before the police could get involved, they are said to have warned Aras T. via cell phone.
T. was on the run for six months, underwent a hair transplant to change his hairline – and researched how to change his eye color. Apparently in order not to be recognized in a passport photo with a different appearance, as the investigator suspected. In the end, however, the police telephone surveillance was discovered and T. was arrested at the motorway service station in Greding.
Judge Jakob Schmidkonz saw a suspended sentence announced by the defense due to the “overwhelming file situation” in the area of illusory. He also accused the defendant of reselling the subterranean vials of growth hormones that had been adulterated in a Bulgarian cellar. “There could have been rat poison in there.”