The video is about the accused doctor issuing an exemption from the mask requirement to a child who does not exist. It’s about how he acts at lateral thinker demonstrations and protests against corona measures. In the ZDF contribution of the magazine Frontal 21 from 2021, which the judge in the district court in Landsberg am Lech has auditioned, a woman then appears next to the doctor in front of the camera, who rants that it was because of the then applicable Corona protective measures “Nuremberg Processes 2.0” will be in place and it’s all about the annihilation of humanity. You can watch all of this on YouTube, but the defendant’s lawyer has now seen enough: he asks the video to be interrupted. Comparisons with National Socialism, even if its client just stands by silently, do not fit the defense’s concept.
His 60-year-old client has had to answer in court since Wednesday because, according to investigations by the public prosecutor, he issued numerous false certificates that were intended to exempt his patients from the mask requirement during the pandemic. Although “patient” is perhaps the wrong word: the doctor and homeopath, living near Landsberg, known nationwide as a critic of the corona measures, is said not to have seen the recipient at all, but instead sent the certificates on request by e-mail or other channels . Because the doctor could no longer keep up with the mass inquiries, two women are also on trial for aiding and abetting: they are said to have helped the accused fill out, send and bill blank certificates.
However, the hearing on Wednesday is soon interrupted again. The start of the process had previously been postponed repeatedly, most recently due to the defender’s corona disease. In the morning, the lawyers then complain that the judge, because of the lack of time due to the missed trial days, as she says, has deleted some witness statements. However, finding new appointments is difficult with three lawyers and a tightly scheduled district court. At 1 p.m., after a long break and discussions without publicity, the judge finally announces that the trial will be suspended and will start again in June – apparently only then does the schedule of those involved allow enough trial days to hear all the witnesses.
In addition to the ZDF report, numerous videos of the accused doctor appearing at protests, some of which contain crude statements, are circulating on the Internet. The public prosecutor also emphasizes one incident again in his indictment before the trial is suspended: According to this, the 60-year-old compared the face mask to the Hitler salute at a demonstration in Lindau and raised his right arm. He was acquitted in a hard-fought process, which is important for his defense attorney to emphasize. However, the judgment is not yet final.
It is about 117 cases of false certificates
The charges he is now facing have had more serious consequences so far: the public prosecutor’s office accuses him of 117 cases of falsely issued certificates. They are said to have been issued between May 2020 and January 2021 without the doctor examining the recipients. Altogether there should have been more than 4700 certificates. The doctor charged 17 euros for each certificate. The public prosecutor’s office searched his house and the residences of his two helpers, confiscated laptops, mobile phones and bank and tax documents and seized the accused’s accounts. A temporary professional ban was even issued against the 60-year-old during the investigation. However, the Augsburg Regional Court then decided that the doctor was only no longer able to issue mask certificates, but was otherwise allowed to pursue his profession.
In a second video that the judge had played in the morning, the doctor tells in an interview about the search of his house and that he received about 150 requests for mask certificates every day. He therefore issued unseen certificates to these patients on the waiting list, as he calls them – because he had not had time to see everyone. As a doctor, it is his job to help, he justifies the allegations against him. At least in the video – in the process, however, he refused to testify on Wednesday.
According to the law, doctors can be sentenced to up to five years in prison in particularly serious cases if they issue incorrect health certificates. It was only in January that a doctor in Weinheim near Mannheim was sentenced to two years and nine months in prison, and the district court also imposed a temporary professional ban. In August last year, the district court in Garmisch-Partenkirchen sentenced a doctor to two years in prison and a three-year ban from practicing her profession. She had issued false certificates even when she was already under investigation.