justice
Boateng in court: Third day of trial
Soccer professional and ex-national player Jérôme Boateng is in the courtroom at the beginning of the appeal process. photo
© Peter Kneffel/dpa
The court had set two days of negotiations for the appeal process against Jérôme Boateng. But that’s not enough. The stories told by witnesses and those involved are too different.
The trial against football star Jérôme Boateng for allegations of physical harm is now in its third day of trial. The 34-year-old is accused of insulting, hitting and injuring his then-partner on a Caribbean vacation in 2018.
The district court in Munich had sentenced him to a fine of 1.8 million euros last year. Because all those involved in the process appealed against this verdict, the appeal process started in October.
Boateng, who denies the allegations but did not speak out in court this time, had twice expressly rejected the offer of the Munich I Regional Court to withdraw the appeal in the matter and only negotiate the sentence.
course of the process completely open
Two medical and psychological experts are still on the court’s agenda to give their assessment of the allegations. However, it is completely open whether the public prosecutor’s office, the private prosecutor and the defense could make their pleas this Thursday.
Because Boateng’s lawyers are pushing for an extensive evidence collection program: For example, chat histories between Boateng’s former partner and his current fiancée could be translated from English and discussed in the negotiation.
However, the court has already rejected the defense’s request that files from 18 family law proceedings, in which Boateng and his ex-girlfriend argued about how to deal with and determine the right of residence for their twin girls, also be an issue in the current assault proceedings.
Witness feels threatened
Judge Andreas Forstner actually wanted to make the verdict on the second day of the hearing, October 21st. But it did not get to that. On that day, an incident on the fringes of the trial also made headlines:
After an incident with Boateng’s security service, the Munich I public prosecutor’s office began investigations on suspicion of violation of the most personal sphere of life through image recordings against several alleged participants, after a witness testified in court that she had been filmed by two security employees entering the building and felt threatened.
The woman, who said in court that she had seen Boateng attack, hit and insult her former girlfriend on a Caribbean vacation, burst into tears on the witness stand. “You’re just afraid,” she said, “that you’ll be threatened or your family will be threatened.”
After determining the personal details, Boateng’s lawyers emphasized that the security service, which had already looked after Mr. Boateng at the start of the trial the day before, had only “determined the environment” in order to be able to assess “Boateng’s security situation”. It was a matter of pure “object clarification” and the witness was not specifically filmed and was only filmed from behind.