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11. 11. 09. - 16:00

Flick coffin robbers set to escape prosecution

By Lisa Chapman

Crooks behind the theft of late billionaire Friedrich Karl Flick’s coffin are likely to walk away unpunished after investigators admitted today (Weds) investigations into the case had been shelved.

Prosecutors said today that the statute of limitations on the crime is one year - meaning whoever stole the coffin cannot be prosecuted after that date.

And public prosecutor Helmut Jamnig confirmed police had stopped their investigation of the case because of the pending expiration of the statute of limitations.

The theft of Flick’s coffin in November last year caused a scandal in Austria and Germany.

Flick’s widow Ingrid offered a reward of 100,000 Euros on 5 December last year for information resulting in the return of her husband’s coffin. There were many responses, but none of them led to anything.

A lawyer in Nuremberg, Germany, asked for a ransom in the name of an anonymous person, but the family said no. German authorities later pressed charges against the lawyer for attempted blackmail.

German-Austrian tycoon Flick, who died in 2006 and was buried at Auen on the Wörther Lake in Carinthia in southern Austria, inherited the family business in 1972. It had relied on forced labour by concentration camp inmates during World War II.

Despite its Nazi legacy, the Flick family has refused to pay compensation to its wartime victims.

He married three times and had four children. At the time of his death, he was the wealthiest person living in Austria with a fortune estimated to be between five and six billion Euros.

In a similar scandal in Switzerland the body of Charlie Chaplin was stolen by grave robbers who demanded a ransom of 600,000 US dollars.

Austrian Times

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