January 9 – The suspect in the attack on Borussia Dortmund’s team bus that led to last season’s Champions League quarter-final with AS Monaco being postponed for 24 hours has admitted to carrying out the attack but says he did not intend to kill or injure anyone.
The German-Russian, identified only as Sergei W in accordance with German law, wanted to devalue the club on the stock market in a ploy to make hundreds of thousands of euros.
Sergei W remotely detonated three bombs that were hidden in a hedge as the team bus left the hotel en route to the stadium. The attack in April shattered the bus’s windows and left Dortmund’s Spanish centre-back Marc Bartra with a fractured wrist and a police officer with inner ear damage but thankfully caused no other injuries.
Prosecutors said the 28-year-old electrical technician was staying at the same hotel as the players and gambled on making up to €500,000 if the share price of the club – the only German team listed on the stock exchange – had plunged. He had placed his bet in the week before the attack but made just €5,900.
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