{"id":3199,"date":"2014-04-29T12:08:05","date_gmt":"2014-04-29T18:08:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scorpsnews.com\/?p=3199"},"modified":"2014-05-25T17:14:21","modified_gmt":"2014-05-25T23:14:21","slug":"the-latest-on-the-drama-concerning-james-kottak-drummer-of-the-scorpions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.scorpsnews.com\/?p=3199","title":{"rendered":"The latest on the drama concerning Drummer James Kottak of the Scorpions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Now we know why drummer James Kottak missed the Scorpions<\/a>\u2018 performance earlier this month at the 2014 Formula One Gulf Air Bahrain Grand\u00a0 Prix \u2014 he was in jail.<\/p>\n

The 51-year-old reportedly consumed five glasses of wine on an April 3 flight\u00a0 to Dubai, and then allegedly began shouting derogatory remarks<\/a> at other passengers once\u00a0 arriving at the airport. Kottak is now spending a month in a Dubai jail, after\u00a0 being convicted this morning of insulting Islam.<\/p>\n

Witnesses claimed that Kottak \u201cstarted swearing and talking about \u2018non-educated Muslims\u2019 before he flashed his middle finger at passengers.\u201d Police also said the drummer lowered his pants, exposing his rear. Another\u00a0 witness, who worked at the airport, added: \u201cWhen he saw the Pakistani and\u00a0 Afghani passengers, he covered his nose and said that there was no way he will\u00a0 travel with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kottak, who has been in custody since April 3, denied the allegations: \u201cI\u00a0 don\u2019t remember saying these words and I did not flash my middle finger. \u2026 There\u00a0 is no way that I would say such a phrase about Muslims, whether I was drunk or\u00a0 not.\u201d He also denied pulling down his pants. \u201cThis is not true. I just lifted my\u00a0 shirt up to show the tattoo on my back\u201d as a \u201cspontaneous act.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to his one-month sentence, Kottak was fined approximately $545\u00a0 for drinking alcohol without a license. \u201cI confess to drinking alcohol,\u201d he\u00a0 said, \u201cbut I refuse the other two charges. I did not do them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kottak was previously in Kingdom Come, a former opening act for the recently unretired<\/a> Scorpions. Helloween\u2019s Mark Cross\u00a0 filled in for Kottak during the April 5 Scorpions performance at the Formula One\u00a0 concert.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now we know why drummer James Kottak missed the Scorpions\u2018 performance earlier this month at the 2014 Formula One Gulf Air Bahrain Grand\u00a0 Prix \u2014 he was in jail. The 51-year-old reportedly consumed five glasses of wine on an April 3 flight\u00a0 to Dubai, and then allegedly began shouting derogatory remarks at other passengers once\u00a0 [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scorpsnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3199"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scorpsnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scorpsnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scorpsnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scorpsnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3199"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.scorpsnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3226,"href":"http:\/\/www.scorpsnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3199\/revisions\/3226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scorpsnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scorpsnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scorpsnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}