Three years ago, five people were killed in a shooting spree in Trier. In 2022, the driver was sentenced to life imprisonment – now the BGH has overturned the decision. The main issue here is his culpability.
Exactly three years ago, a man killed five people in a shooting spree in Trier. In August 2022 he was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Trier regional court. He was also ordered to be placed in a psychiatric clinic. Now the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) has overturned the regional court’s decision.
The Trier judgment must therefore be fundamentally re-examined. The Federal Court of Justice says that it was okay how the regional court clarified the external events. But otherwise Karlsruhe is not happy about the verdict.
BGH: culpability not checked properly
Above all, the regional court did not properly examine whether the gunman was at all culpable. Here the judgment is “completely legally erroneous”. The driver suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. The Trier court assumed that the perpetrator’s culpability was reduced, but not eliminated.
According to the BGH, it is not just the general condition of a perpetrator that needs to be determined, but also his condition in the specific situation of the crime – i.e. when he was sitting in his vehicle. The regional court did not look closely at whether there had been an acute attack of the disease. It also ignored the interaction with alcohol. The driver was clearly drunk during the shooting.
Now another chamber of the Trier regional court must re-examine whether the gunman was guilty or should be acquitted. The question of admission to a psychiatric clinic must also be decided again.
Max Bauer, SWR, tagesschau, December 1st, 2023 7:07 p.m