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The Trial of the Century; Gassel goes before the court
Topic Started: Jun 25 2012, 03:51 AM (366 Views)
Kasnyia
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Chairman of the Bank
OOC- Doing this now because of the imminent collapse of Byzantium. Gonna try to use it.

IC-

Finally.

It had taken an estimated 1300 or so trials, but the Justice Commission, as the authority set up at the end of the war to try war criminals was called, had finally gotten to the star of the show: Konstantin Ganz Gassel himself.

Even in getting there, it had been exciting. Drama, drama, drama, all of the cloak and dagger variety. After Volehr had been tried and executed, te surving incarcerated began making deals against one another. Those who didn't murdered those who did. One such of the former was one of the VIPs, Marshal Anton Proust of Durick Veta. Proust had been diagnosed with cancer and was already dying, had been abandoned by his country, and had no love lost between him and Gassel, what with joining Veicht's revolt during the war and all. As such, he decided to turn witness against everyone else, but particularly Gassel.

Didn't take long for word to get out to Gassel himself. When both were brought into the closed chambers (it was considered too dangerous to have an open trial with Gassel for fear of his assassination) for Proust to identify Gassel, the latter was said to have been sad that Proust went through with it. Proust, fearing for his life, tried to explain the need to do it, and from what the judge had said later about the incident, Gassel had seemed quite understanding, even forgiving.

That is until she and the guards in the room had realized...too late...that Gassel had slowly positioned himself behind Proust and then waited for the opportune moment to use his cuffs like fiberwire. Even though the guards took only seconds to get Gassel off of the former Dominion High Council member, a few seconds had been all Gassel needed to break Proust's neck with his iron cuffs. Gassel was said to have smiled to the judge afterward before being dragged back to his cell in solitary confinement.

With the murder of Anton Proust, a wave of mass murders occured among prison inmates. Through hook or by crook, by prisoner or paid off guard, the snitches almost always got killed. Which wasn't to say some of the snitches didn't kill the loyalists either. Supposedly, this had been the fate of Field Marshal Jan Karelberg, one of the few Caronicillians to remain loyal to Gassel after Veicht split with him. Taking his loyalty seriously, he had ordered more hits against snitches than anyone else save Gassel himself. One of his guards eventually had enough and, wanting both to avenge the dead, protect the remaining snitches, and to get vengeance against a Dominion Field Marshal for what the guard figured were his crimes, proceeded to use his machine gun on Karelberg. At full auto.

And so with all this drama, the Commission was almost relieved to get to Gassel's trial. They had everything ready, and every part of the proceeding would be televised live to the world.

When he entered the court, he did not look at anyone but the judge, who was unfazed. As proceedings started, the judge asked how Gassel pleaded. With Gassel dismissing all counsel, he could only speak for himself. However, unlike Volehr, he did not bother ranting: He saw the court as unworthy of his ideas. Instead he turned to face the cameras (with the judge hammering her gavel as she ordered him to face her) and said,

"To any who are watching this circus, I will offer to make very wealthy if they can get me out of here!"

He could not continue because by then the judge had managed to get the cameras turned off. And that was how the trial started.
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Kasnyia
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It had taken two days just to read off the (main) charges. For this, the judge had turned on the cameras, one trained on her as she read out all what Gassel was accused of, and the other on the accused, as he stared directly at the judge and sometimes at the camera. At times he would grin when a certain charge was heard, at other times he would shake his head. But most of the time, he was stoic, emotionless.

OOC- Short posts might make this flow better.
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Kasnyia
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Chairman of the Bank
It was surreal to see Gassel, 90 plus years of age, known for decades as a militarist butcher, was now being his own lawyer. To the more cynical among the worldwide audience, they saw no difference...

He did not bother to even challenge what he had done (unless it was done by a subordinate, in which case he was "helpful" to the judge by telling who while, so as to not seem like he was snitching, took crimes that had been wrongfully attributed to someone else in the Dominion, or to crimes that had not been known by the court.

----------

Outside the trial, there was a vociferous debate between those who wanted him to hang and those who wanted him to rot in prison.

OOC- If anyone's nations have strong opinions on this, please do give a snippet of it here.
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Kasnyia
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Day 134 of the Trial

By now, the interest in seeing Gassel slain in the name of Justice had begun to wane. Most were worried about the murmurings within the Empire where the trial was being held. Prisoners already tried and sentenced were being moved out of the Empire to Russia to ease the former's burden. For those not tried yet, there were plans to summarily execute them, or to imprison them for life in Siberia, but nothing was agreed upon. The Commission was no longer organized with all the distractions.

As for the trial itself, Gassel had taken to ridiculing the witnesses brought before the court by the prosecution when it was his turn to cross-examine. In one case, against a particularly trecharous (in his eyes) witness, he used the opportunity to cross to throw acid in the man's face. It was after that that the judge ordered Gassel to be appointed counsel despite his wishes, and also banned from the court room. That would be the last day of the trial where anything interesting happened. The cameras got bored even more quickly with the trial after that.

Just as Gassel had planned.
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The Authority of the Grand Moff
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2nd Lieutenant
 *  *  *  *  *
Quote:
 
Official Statement of the Council of Moffs

While there is very much appealing in the notion of this Abomination withering away in a windowless 3x3 cell, such a punishment does not seem extreme enough. After all, imprisonment is for common criminals, not for tyrannical war criminals who have committed treason against their fellow Man.

We therefore submit that Gassel be hanged, drawn, and quartered.



OOC: Meaning that Gassel would be dragged behind a horse to the gallows, hanged (but not quite to death), is disemboweled while he is conscious, and finally is decapitated, his body cut into four pieces, and the entirety of it is burned (perhaps with the head mounted on a pike).
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Comrade Queen
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Comrade Bitchqueen
In a bar in Kanitsu, Kiru Tao...

"Y'know, there's no punishment in this Earth that's harsh enough for a criminal like Gassel."

"True, true."

"No matter what they do to him, its not going to bring back all the lives he killed, ruined, or destroyed. If only there was a way to truly make his last days miserable...."

"Yep."

"It would be rather satisfying, I mean, to watch him get raped in a schoolgirl uniform by a tentacle monster."

The other guy spat out his drink.
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Rhadamanthus
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Legitimist

The official position of the imperial government is that Gassel should be executed. In fact, if the Dominionist prisoners were being held by the empire on its own authority, rather than in trust for the community of nations, they would have been executed already.
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Kasnyia
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Chairman of the Bank
As the last days of trial approached, the media became interested again. Stories began to come out about the deliberations, the accusations, with legal experts proving, disproving, and contemplating every aspect of every charge. Of course, most of it was mere rhetoric: Everyone knew Gassel was, legally speaking, toast.

Gassel, in an effort to anoint the day of his sentencing, managed to start a prison riot between Dominion prisoners and prisoners associated with the New World Order, a breakaway faction of the Dominion during the war that had been lead by Friedhelm Veicht. Everyone knew that security was tight enough that the riot would ultimately not lead to anything, but by the end of it, a third of the guards and almost a fifth of the Dominion prisoners were killed in the fighting. The New World Order prisoners, on the other hand, were nearly annihilated. Those who remained were sent to other prisons holding Dominion, Dominion-allied, and ex-Dominion personnel. VIP prisoners such as Gassel were, for precautionary purposes, moved out of their cells and into a secure wing of the prison while the riot was being handled.

The prison now had only Dominion loyalists and less guards. Gassel smiled to himself at the thought a few days after the riot,

Patience is key to all things, he thought as he dressed himself for his last day in open court, It gave me the Dominion and it shall give me my freedom.
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Kasnyia
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Chairman of the Bank
The first attempt to break Gassel out of prison came some three months after he made the public request, falling on the day of his sentencing (multiple life sentences). The attack was carried out by a rag tag militia of drug addicted ex-military types who wanted the cash prize as seed money for their organization. They were wiped out within the first hour of their assault, which was carried out while Gassel had been in transport between prison and the court.

The second attempt was perhaps even more desperate. It consisted of over 100 technicals snuck in from Sennar into the Byzantine Empire, all of which were used in a sustained attack on the prison. It only took 30 minutes for that attack to fail, but it was decided after that to have Gassel moved.

There were four attempts soon after, all small and almost comedic in their patheticness. It seemed quite clear to the prison and court security forces that Gassel's supporters were, at best, amateurs. And so they began to take their jobs for granted.

Somewhere in Grozny, the South African made his plans....
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Kasnyia
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OOC- If anyone wants to debut any terrorist groups or Dominion wannabes or mercenaries, this is your chance. As long as you ultimately fail to free or kill Gassel, you can do whatever you want.
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Kasnyia
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Grozny

The South African was asleep when his aide, a young ginger-haired fellow who had been a child soldier during the war, woke him up.

"Sir, we have an issue. One of our contacts have decided to stiff us."

The South African sighed at the mild annoyance. The Transcontinental Contingent had been planning their raid on Gassel's prison for weeks. In order to help facilitate this, several guards and other officials were bribed, threatened, or otherwise made to help them by giving them info.

"Which one, Julius?" he asked, as he wiped the sleep from his eyes.

"Satino Andolini, deputy warden of the light security wing of the prison. We had paid him one hundred million for the prison's internal layout as well as guard rotations in his wing of the prison. After we paid, he broke contact and disappeared late last night."

"You're telling me only now?" the South African muttered, mildly surprised. Though hot-headed, Julius was very good at his work, and this was quite unlike him.

"I had him followed just in case. Our spies just tracked him to a villa in Dalmatia."

"Grab him, interrogate him for what is owed to us, then kill him," said the South African, "But you wouldn't need me to tell you that unless there was a problem, so speak."

"The villa is heavily guarded," Julius replied, "Condottierri, from what our men could observe. Also a few known Mafia members were seen leaving and entering the manor. I did not order a full raid for fear of drawing attention to us."

"Very astute of you," said the South African, contemplating his next move, "How many guards?"

"Only two outside the walls. A few on patrol, a few between the walls and the manor. More inside."

"Going rate is...hmm," muttered the South African as he did quick calculations in his head, "Mr. Andolini spent about five million on security, probably another five on the villa itself. Either he's trying to protect what he has stolen from us, or he's trying to live the high life. Either way..."

"What would you have us do?"

"Seal off the area, but keep out of sight and don't tip them off. I'll handle Mr. Andolini myself," the South African muttered darkly. Julius's eyes widened slightly and suddenly he began to pity Andolini for what was coming to him...

----------------

A few days later, the South African was in the Dalmatian countryside. He spotted a small hillock near the compound and quietly made his way to the top. Once there, he brought out his binoculars to observe the manor. Crawling with guards, as Julius said, but then he also spotted Andolini on the balcony, practicing his golf swing. Though the South African could easily have sniped the man, he still needed Andolini's information. He didn't want to attract attention, but he also didn't want to pick a fight with the Condottieri since he never knew when having good relations with them might come in handy.

He observed for a few minutes when he noticed a small door in the wall hidden in the bushes. He made his way down from the hillock, toward the door. Just as he was about to try the handle though, it began to open and a Venetian mercenary stepped out, undoing his fly as he moved. The mercenary, not noticing the South African, turned his back to him to take a piss. That was the cue for the South African to knock him unconscious. He dragged his body into the bushes, took his clothes, and entered onto the manor grounds. He casually walked past other guards and even a few mafia associates and entered the manor through the kitchen door.

Walking upstairs, he became cautious. Here people would know each other far better. He needed to get to Andolini's room before anyone got too close a look at him....

TO BE CONTINUED.

OOC- A cookie to who guesses the inspiration.
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Kasnyia
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It didn't take long to actually kill Andolini. But the time and effort it took to get the information the South African had actually paid for....was surprisingly long for a man the South African didn't respect enough to think him worthy of the prison, let alone be involved with the TCG. But after 3 hours of administering Dominion interrogation techniques, he had what he wanted.

Once all was done, he quietly grabbed the money Andolini had forfeited with his life, snuck back out, and then headed back to Groznyy.

--------

Things were falling apart in Constantinople.

The once impenetrable capital of the restored Byzantine Empire was edging toward chaos. Food and worker riots were becoming a norm, as was the smell of smoke grenades and pepper spray. The prison was still secure, but the people no longer cared for the spectacle of the trials, going beyond even what Gassel had hoped with his own macinations. They had basic livelihoods to worry about and that made things easier than hoped. Especially with news. Guards were more willing to gossip than before. A war in northern Europe, conflict in Africa, his homeland of Kasnyia was dormant, Byzantium was weaker, and most importantly, the people had stopped caring about the Dominion. Like with Constantinople, the rest of the world had moved on.

With the guards so easy to get information out of, it became almost as easy to use them to get information out as well. And Konstantin Ganz Gassel had only one message: "I'm here, and I'm ready, get me out." He had them deliver it to people who could be trusted to make sure it got to the right people.

OOC- Short post, just to say I haven't given up on this topic.
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Kasnyia
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Chairman of the Bank
OOC- Just ending this quickly.

IC-

When Constantinople collapsed, interested parties (particularly Kasnyian Intelligence) went to the prison to see if Gassel was still secure or if he had died.

They found no evidence supporting either theory. Gassel was gone, and from the looks of his cell, it seemed it had been a hell of a firefight to get him out.

------------

In Groznyy, the South African was pleased when he had heard from Julius that someone had finally come looking. A small part of him wanted to declare their part in his recovery, but he overuled himself: Gassel was very old now and needed care and perhaps some of the medicines that had earlier granted him extended youth and mortality. But that would take time. And in anycase, he didn't need to get the world to unite against him. Not when the Transcontinental Contingent had other plans....
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Comrade Queen
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Comrade Bitchqueen
The Kiru Taoese government is concerned over the apparent disappearance of the war criminal Konstantin Ganz Gassel following Constantinople's collapse and suggests an international task force to investigate his ultimate fate. The possibility that this dangerous man, despite his present age, could once again be at large is too important a matter to ignore.

- Kiru Taoese Bureau of Foreign Affairs
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Kasnyia
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Chairman of the Bank
The Kasnyian Empire concurs with Kiru Tao and would like to assist in the creation of this task force. It is also the Empire's opinion that an outside force was responsible for his retrieval.

- Statement from the Imperial Foreign Ministry of Kasnyia
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Porcu
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"Work is the curse of the drinking classes."

The Republic concurs with the governments of Kiru Tao and the Kasnyian Empire and proposes that the issue by directed to the Office of the Special Prosecutor. The Republic will gladly donate personnel to any international team that is created.
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