Hanau
“Father came to kill” – life imprisonment for murder of children
After the murder of his children: The district court in Hanau has sentenced a father to life imprisonment. photo
© Arne Dedert/dpa/Archive
The presiding judge speaks of an incomprehensible case: a father is said to have murdered his children in revenge on his wife. The Hanau district court imposed the maximum penalty on him for this.
In the trial surrounding the violent death of two children, their father was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Hanau Regional Court. The court found the man guilty of murdering his seven-year-old daughter and eleven-year-old son.
In addition, the court determined the particular gravity of the guilt. As a rule, early release from prison after 15 years is almost impossible. According to the indictment, the Indian wanted to punish his wife, who had separated from him.
According to investigations, on the morning of May 11 last year, the man waited for his wife to leave the apartment in the Hessian city and then lurked outside the door until the children opened it to go to school. In the apartment, he pushed his daughter onto a bed and probably cut her neck twice with a knife. The son was seriously injured when he jumped from the balcony of the apartment on the ninth floor of a high-rise building. Passers-by found the child, who died in hospital shortly afterwards. The father fled and was caught a few days later in a suburb of Paris.
“With purposeful revenge” proceeded
The man planned his act and proceeded “with targeted revenge,” according to the presiding judge. He took advantage of the children’s defenselessness by ambushing them and making the apartment “a deadly trap”. He also wanted to cause lasting suffering to his wife with the death of the children. As a father, he would have had a duty to protect his son and daughter. The last thing the boy saw was his injured sister and the “father who came to kill,” said the presiding judge.
The court agreed with the prosecutor’s request. The man’s defense attorney had not made a specific request in his plea, but pointed out that the exact events in the apartment on the day of the crime had not been clarified. In his last word, according to a translator, the man said a few days ago: “I regret the death of my two children.” The verdict is not final, but an appeal to the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe is possible. The man’s defense attorney declined to comment.