1:30 p.m., for the third time this Tuesday, the judges enter room 101 of the Augsburg Regional Court. Everyone stands up: the chief public prosecutor, the two defense attorneys, the psychiatric expert, the journalists present, the magistrates, the two listeners. Only one does not get up. He can’t even get up. Gerhard H., the accused, did not appear.
Actually, the trial against Gerhard H. should begin on Tuesday morning. The Nuremberg Public Prosecutor’s Office accuses the 73-year-old doctor of intentional bodily harm in 314 cases, violating the Vaccination Protection Act in 228 cases and fraud. Gerhard H. had practiced as a family doctor in Wemding, Swabia, until 2021. He is said to have only faked the vaccination in at least 176 patients who wanted him to vaccinate them against the corona virus. In at least 40 patients who not wanted to be vaccinated against the virus, he is said to have documented a vaccination in the vaccination card and also billed it – without having previously given an injection. Since the investigations began in autumn 2021, H. has been temporarily banned from working.
The doctor was apparently also able to deceive the patients who had hoped for a vaccination because he is said to have not put the syringe in the upper arm as usual, but in the buttocks. So they could not have noticed that he squirted out the vaccine beforehand. This trial should clarify why he wanted to deceive all these people. In the event of a conviction, Gerhard H. faces a prison sentence of several years, according to a spokesman for the district court.
On Tuesday, chief prosecutor Philip Engl was to read out the indictment, after which H. would have had the opportunity to describe his view of things. But after that it was obviously not for him.
The defenders are also “surprised”
At 9.17 a.m., the judges around the presiding judge Martina Neuhierl entered the room for the first time. And soon withdrew. The accused was absent, and the judges waited with benevolence. Maybe there were good reasons. Maybe he had overslept. Or stuck in traffic. Or was sick. In any case, the two defenders had heard nothing from H.. He has “no knowledge of the defendant’s whereabouts,” said his attorney David Mühlberger, who admitted to being “surprised by the situation at the moment.”
When the judges returned to the court less than half an hour later, the accused had still not come and he hadn’t told anyone where he was staying. Chief Public Prosecutor Philip Engl then applied for an arrest warrant. He said he had thought about it before because of a possible escape hazard. But then, after the search, H. hired a lawyer, and Engl refrained from issuing an arrest warrant. “That turned out to be wrong today.” Defense attorney Mühlberger emphasized during the break in the hearing that from his point of view his client’s absence “was not to be expected”. “There were no abnormalities.”
During the morning, the criminal police drove to all the addresses that were known from the file. Unsuccessful. Gerhard H. could not be found.
When the presiding judge Neuhierl enters the room for the third time at midday, she already knows that she will not meet the accused doctor now either. There are still “no clues as to where the accused is.” The second day of negotiations was actually scheduled for Thursday, but this will now be cancelled. The court will announce new dates, says Neuhierl at the end. Provided the police can arrest Gerhard H.