Trial: parole for 87-year-old after the death of his wife

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Parole for 87-year-olds after the death of his wife

The defendant in the Lüneburg district court next to his lawyer Thorsten Hess. Photo: Sina Schuldt / dpa

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In the end, the man saw no other way out. The judge speaks of a human tragedy.

For more than 40 years, a man has been lovingly caring for his wife after a bicycle accident, at times she is in a coma and in the end both of them live together in the home.

As he himself became more and more frail, he believed he had no other way out than to kill her. On Mother’s Day 2020, the increasingly demented senior takes a kitchen knife and stabs his wife. He wants to die with her, but the accused, who is trembling in the courtroom, probably lacks the strength for that. The 87-year-old was sentenced to a suspended sentence by the Lüneburg district court on Monday, also because he confessed to everything.

After three days of negotiations, the Lower Saxony chamber imposed two years’ imprisonment for a minor case of manslaughter. The probationary period for this was set at three years, and the defendant has to bear the costs of the proceedings. The verdict is not yet legally binding.

Judge Franz Kompisch spoke in his statement of a human tragedy that had happened in a home. The 87-year-old woman, who was barely responsive, lay on her bed with her hands clasped after the act of violence. “It’s not a classic manslaughter,” said Kompisch. The act was committed by a very old, desperate man in an exceptional psychological situation.

The public prosecutor’s office had previously pleaded for less serious manslaughter with a suspended sentence of two years because of the old age. The defense attorney appealed in his application for a judgment of the Federal Court of Justice on an extended suicide, which had also failed. He called for a sentence of no more than a year and a half.

dpa

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