Pensioner gang jailed for kidnap, torture

BERLIN - The coded command was: "Willy, go and get the green file out of the car."

It was the cue for an all-pensioner kidnapping team - led by its 74-year-old ringleader - to limp into action.

Their target: the investment adviser they accused of losing €2.4 million ($4.6 million) of their money during the financial crisis.

It also marked the start of a horrific four-day kidnap ordeal for James Amburn, an American-born consultant at the hands of five pensioners aged between 61 and 80.

Amburn was snatched from his home, driven 480km in the boot of a car, hidden in a cellar, interrogated and beaten. "I feared for my life - I did not know whether I would survive," he recalled.

Yesterday, in a Bavarian courtroom four of the pensioners were sentenced for kidnapping and torturing Amburn - with sentences ranging from an 18-month suspended sentence to six years jail for Roland K , the ringleader.

The fifth pensioner, aged 67, will be tried later because of illness.

Judge Karl Niedermeyer described their crimes as a "spectacular case of individuals taking justice into their own hands".

The events that led up to the kidnapping began in the 1990s.

Roland K and his wife Sieglinde started investing their capital in Florida's then booming property market via an investment company run by Amburn. The Ks reaped handsome returns but their investments crashed as a result of the sub-prime mortgage crisis and by early 2009 the Ks and three other pensioners were clamouring for their cash to be returned. Amburn did not provide it.

Desperate for their money, Roland K and his accomplice Willy D, 61, went to Amburn's home in Speyer in June last year with a plan to kidnap him.

After their victim returned from the pub, they sat on him and bound him with brown sticky tape. The two pensioners then bundled the 57-year-old Amburn into a specially-made removal company carton.

Sweating profusely, they lifted the box on to a trolley and staggered past cafes as they pushed it towards their Audi 8 saloon parked 450m away.

"If anybody had asked what was inside, we were going to tell them it contained a marble statue," said Roland K.

They drove Amburn to Roland K's holiday home at Lake Chiemsee in Bavaria. Amburn was held semi-naked in a cellar in the house and interrogated in the garage. The interrogations were also attended by Gerhard and Iris F, aged 63 and 66, who had also lost money through Amburn.

During the trial, Roland K told disbelieving judges Amburn had been taken to Chiemsee so the "mountain air might help him to think better".

Allowed to take cigarette breaks in the garden, Amburn leapt over a wall in his underpants and ran away shouting: "Help - I've been kidnapped." But neighbours thought he was a burglar and handed him back to his abductors.

Eventually Amburn managed to convince his kidnappers he could return some of their money and they allowed him to fax a Swiss bank where he also sent a message to call the police.

VIOLENCE AND THE FINANCIAL CRISIS

* The highest-profile victim of the backlash against the bankers in Britain was former RBS boss Sir Fred Goodwin. Windows at his Edinburgh home were smashed and a black Mercedes car in his drive vandalised. Emails sent from a group claiming responsibility for the attack said they were angry that rich people were living in luxury while ordinary people lost their jobs. Goodwin became the target of public anger after details emerged of his generous pension deal. The stricken bank needed a £20 billion ($42.5 billion) bailout.

* The United States insurer AIG received death threats, including a vow to garrotte staff with piano wire, amid fury over bonuses received by top executives. The firm was given a US$170 billion ($241 billion) government bailout following its near collapse, and there was an angry response from the public after the firm paid bonuses of US$1 million or more to 73 executives.

- INDEPENDENT