crime
Trial of triple murder – high youth sentences demanded
One of two men (r) accused of murder is led into the high-security courtroom of the Munich II Regional Court before the start of the hearing. photo
© Sven Hoppe/dpa
In juvenile criminal law, a maximum sentence of ten years is customary, even for murder. In the case of the triple murder in Starnberg, however, the prosecutor apparently sees a particular degree of guilt.
In the trial of a triple murder in Starnberg, the public prosecutor’s office is demanding high youth sentences for murder for the two accused. On Monday, the prosecutor spoke out in her plea for 13 years and six months in prison and the reservation of preventive detention.
“No one can separate good friends – unless one of the friends urgently needs money,” said prosecutor Julia Wiesendorfer before the Munich II Regional Court. “Then even the best friendship ends.”
The public prosecutor assumes that the main defendant, who is now 22 years old, shot his friend and his parents in January 2020. He is charged with three counts of murder. His 21-year-old roommate is said to have planned the murder of their friend and drove the main perpetrator to the scene. He’s on trial for murder.
Main accused confesses
The main defendant – in contrast to his co-defendant – confessed to the crimes during the trial and admitted that through the murders he also wanted to get his buddy’s illegally owned weapons in order to sell them for a lot of money.
He also wanted to prevent a killing spree that his friend had planned in a shopping center. The public prosecutor’s office did not doubt that these plans for the serious crime existed. However, this “doesn’t even begin to justify the act,” the prosecution said in its closing argument.
The crime from January 2020 also made headlines because the investigators were initially on the wrong track and assumed that the young man had first shot his parents and then himself.
Actually, in juvenile criminal law, even murder has a maximum sentence of ten years. However, if adolescents – i.e. people between 18 and 21 years of age – are convicted under juvenile criminal law, up to 15 years are possible in rare cases of murder with a particularly serious degree of guilt.