The three men accused of robbing a watch store in Reykjavík are currently on trial, and getting to the bottom of who really planned the robbery appears more complicated than it seemed.
As reported, last October, the watch store Michelsen was robbed in broad daylight, the suspects holding staff at gunpoint and robbing millions of crowns’ worth of watches. One of the thieves was caught in Iceland, in possession of the watches themselves, while the other three had left the country. Another two of the four suspects were arrested in Switzerland earlier this spring, and were subsequently extradited to Iceland.
Vísir reports that two of the suspects are now on trial in Reykjavík District Court, while the third is already serving a five-year sentence for his part in the heist. The trial is now, in part, trying to get to the bottom of who was the brains behind the operation – a task that is proving both daunting and shrouded in mystery.
The two men on trial have said that the third currently in custody had planned the robbery. This third man was brought into court as a witness, and testified that he had no part in planning the operation. However, of the other two he said, “They didn’t come near the planning phase. I want to ask for their forgiveness here.”
When asked who did, then, plan the heist, the third man refused to give up the name. He said that to do so might put himself or his family in danger. However, he did say that the mastermind is a known criminal figure in his hometown in Poland, where he is part of a gang. “I was just a pawn,” he said. “I didn’t plan any of this.”
The fourth man in the robbery is still at large, and presumed to be somewhere in Poland.
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