Sharpe's Opinion
Saturday, 21st Mar, 2009
I would have got away with it, too, if only I’d had a twin…
Der Spiegel reports on twins who have been released from custody after DNA tests were unable to determine which of the twins had stolen millions of Euros worth of jewels.
When police found traces of DNA on a glove left at the scene of the crime, it seemed that the criminals responsible for Germany’s most spectacular heist in years would be caught. But the DNA led to not one but two suspects — 27-year-old identical, or monozygotic, twins with near-identical DNA.
German law stipulates that each criminal must be individually proven guilty. The problem in the case of the O. brothers is that their twin DNA is so similar that neither can be exclusively linked to the evidence using current methods of DNA analysis. So even though both have criminal records and may have committed the heist together, Hassan and Abbas O. have been set free.