crime
Illerkirchberg murder trial: pleadings pending
The accused is led into the courtroom in handcuffs and shackles. photo
© Felix Kästle/dpa
The deadly knife attack in Illerkirchberg attracted nationwide attention. The Ulm district court has been hearing the case since the beginning of June – now the pleas are expected.
In the murder trial of the knife attack in Illerkirchberg south of Ulm, the pleadings are to be held before the Ulm district court this morning. A 27-year-old is on trial there who came to Germany from Eritrea as an asylum seeker. The public prosecutor accuses him of murder and attempted murder with dangerous bodily harm.
In December last year, the man is said to have attacked two students with a knife. A 14-year-old did not survive the attack, her 13-year-old friend was able to escape.
According to the public prosecutor’s office, the accused wanted to use a knife to force travel documents for a marriage in Ethiopia from the district office of the Alb-Donau district on the day of the crime. According to the psychiatric expert, a major problem for the defendant was that he did not have a wife.
According to the indictment, the two girls walked past the man’s house just as he was leaving. Assuming the students had seen the knife, he is said to have spontaneously decided to kill them. He wanted to prevent the girls from notifying the police and thwarting his plan. A police officer who spoke to the 13-year-old after the crime testified in court: “The two didn’t see a knife or anything.” The crime in December had attracted nationwide attention.
Last week, a man was fined EUR 1,750 by the Bavarian district court in Neu-Ulm for two counts of condoning a criminal offence. According to a spokesman for the court, he wrote a hate comment on a Facebook post by the Ulm police on the Illerkirchberg trial. In it he found that the alleged perpetrator deserved violence.
A verdict in the murder trial could come in early July.