crime
Serial killer as a witness – In retrospect, the horror remains
Correctional officers drive the convicted ex-nurse Niels Högel (l) to the process in the Weser-Ems-Hallen. Photo: Mohssen Assanimoghaddam/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
This time Niels Högel is sitting in the witness chair. As in the trial against him in 2019, the same horror sets in. But others are accused. It is unclear whether she is partly to blame for her omission.
In the trial against those responsible from the Oldenburg and Delmenhorst clinics, ex-nurse Niels Högel, who was convicted of 85 murders in 2019, testified as the first witness.
The Oldenburg district court hopes that his statements will provide clues as to whether his ex-supervisors are guilty of aiding and abetting manslaughter or attempted manslaughter through omission. “As a witness, you have to tell the truth,” the presiding judge warned him on Tuesday.
Externally, much is reminiscent of the 2018/2019 process in which Högel was convicted. As then, the psychological expert Max Steller is sitting in the large hall of the Weser-Ems-Halle. Högel had a “high tendency to lie and a high willingness to lie” and was able to make high-quality false statements, Steller had attested to the man at the time. The admonition of the judge is therefore not unfounded.
On Tuesday, Högel described from the witness chair how he killed his victims and why he killed the defenseless patients. The German described all of this back in 2019. The same speechless horror is spreading. But it’s not about Högel, who is serving his sentence in the JVA Oldenburg. His guilt is clear. The presumption of innocence applies to the accused. This means that the results of the 2019 judgment cannot simply be adopted. All allegations must be re-introduced, examined, proven or disproved.
crime hard to grasp
Even years later, the dimension of the crime cannot really be grasped. When asked by the judge how many people he had killed, Högel, whose face can be seen on two large monitors, replied that he knew why he had been convicted. Most recently this was in 2019 for 85 murders. “But I could never say if that’s the final number. I really can’t say that.”
The trial against the seven accused is specifically about eight cases for which Högel has already been convicted: three murders in the Oldenburg Clinic and three murders and two attempted murders in Delmenhorst. Högel was sentenced for the six murders in 2019 and for the two attempted murders in 2006 and 2015.
Christian Marbach, whose grandfather was one of Högel’s victims, was “positively surprised” by the appearance of the witness. Högel reported “openly and reflectively” in retrospect when he first appeared as a witness, said Marbach. Of course, this gives him a stage again. But as “disgusting” as it is: “Nobody has better information than the perpetrator,” Marbach said on the first day of the trial.
A focus on Tuesday was also a contract with a media company for, according to Högel, a one-and-a-half-hour telephone interview conducted from Oldenburg prison in June 2021. For the contract, he had been advised by a media lawyer, who was also paid. At the request of the defense, the court decided on Tuesday to confiscate the relevant contract documents in Högel’s cell. The hearing is set to continue on Wednesday.
A total of 42 process days are scheduled for the hearing. The accused are represented by 18 lawyers. The case against another accused, a care manager from Delmenhorst, was separated for health reasons. Högel injected his victims with drugs to death between 2000 and 2005. In total, since 2005, he has been convicted of 91 offenses in several trials, including a total of 87 murders.