Trier amok trial
Expert: Accused reduced criminal responsibility
Police and fire brigade forces on duty near the pedestrian zone in Trier, where a driver hit several people and fatally injured them (2020). Photo: Harald Tittel/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
The alleged amok driver is persistently silent on the allegations. A psychiatric report declares him to be less criminally responsible.
According to a psychiatric expert, the alleged amok driver from Trier has reduced criminal responsibility. He suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, which has limited his ability to control the crime, said expert Wolfgang Retz on Wednesday before the Trier district court.
The 52-year-old had a “bizarre delusion” in which he saw himself as the victim of “a large-scale state conspiracy” against him, which had intensified over the years.
The defendant has been on trial since mid-August 2021 on five counts of murder and attempted murder on 18 counts and aggravated assault. On December 1, 2020, at noon, he is said to have raced through the pedestrian zone in his SUV at high speed and hit people “randomly and purposefully”.
The trained electrician had said at the beginning of the process that he did not want to comment on the allegations. He has stuck to it to this day – and has remained silent about it. According to the indictment, the German was single at the time of the crime, unemployed, without a permanent address and frustrated by his personal circumstances.
Five people died in the shooting: a nine-week-old baby, his father (45) and three women aged 73, 52 and 25. There were also many injured and traumatized.