COURTS in Germany have granted legal rights to forbid Hells Angels members from wearing their jackets during trials, to stop the intimidation that is associated with the death head insignia.
The Constitutional Court in Berlin deemed that wearing the jackets was an ‘unacceptable showing of force that might intimidate and threaten the parties to the proceeding’ and that the ban would be a ‘preventive condition for a safe and unimpaired trial.’
The decision follows an overruling of a complaint lodged by a Hells Angels’ member, who was given a one year prison sentence for complicity in extortion in 2010. He claimed his trial was unfair as the presiding judge, in consultation with the police, stopped him and his Hells Angels supporters from wearing their club jackets at the trial.
The convicted member of the gang had forced the owner of a tattoo parlour to cooperate with the Hells Angels, by threatening to snap off his head and intimidating him by placing a sheep’s head on his doorstep.
