Claus Barrit Bork Hansen, nicknamed "Karate Claus", was a Danish organized crime figure and senior member of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club. He was later excommunicated by the Bandidos and was murdered by a member of his former club following an internal feud.
Background
Hansen was a senior Bandidos member for five to six years, serving as the European sergeant-at-arms in Marseille, France before returning to Denmark where he was allegedly a candidate for the club's national presidency. During the Nordic Biker War in Denmark, he was personally appointed as the bodyguard of European presidentJim Tinndahn, with whom he travelled to France and Australia. Hansen opposed the peace treaty with the Hells Angels which ended the biker war in September 1997, and later became president of the Bandidos "Mideast" chapter in Hedehusene. An internal feud began in August 2000 following the excommunication of Hansen's close friend, Mickey Borgfjord Larsen. After disbanding the chapter by expelling all members and subsequently burning all Bandidos symbols in the clubhouse, Hansen was excommunicated from the Bandidos and told by club leadership that he must leave the property by 1 March 2001. He transformed the former Bandidos clubhouse into a branch of "Red & White", a Hells Angels support club, and also considered founding an Outlaws charter.
Murder
On 21 March 2001, Hansen was assassinated after being shot twenty-six times on A.F. Beyersvej in Vanløse, Copenhagen as he returned from a visit to a restaurant with his girlfriend. The police had several times, as late as the day before, warned him that he was on the Bandidos' hit list and offered him protection, which he refused. Kriminalpolitiet investigated the killing and later arrested four full-patch members of the Bandidos, who were charged with Hansen's murder. On 12 April 2002, Jens Christian Thorup was sentenced to life in prison for the killing at the High Court of Eastern Denmark. The twelve jurors and three magistrates also decided that he should be admitted to a psychiatric hospital when the Judicial Council determined he was mentally ill. On 15 January 2003, the Supreme Court ruled that his sentence should be reduced to sixteen years in prison. The other three suspects – Kent "Kemo" Sørensen, Karl Martin Thorup and Peter Buch Rosenberg – were acquitted of charges of murder and conspiracy to murder on 11 April 2002. Hansen had made a pact with Mickey Borgfjord Larsen in which they both vowed to take revenge in the event of one another's murder. After Hansen's assassination, Larsen threatened the lives of several high-ranking Bandidos and was himself subsequently killed in a car bomb at Rigshospitalet Glostrup on 17 September 2003.
