Revision process - 19-year-old sunk in the Weser - New sentence imposed
The Verden Regional Court has once again handed down a verdict in the trial concerning a woman who was dumped in the River Weser. The court revised its sentence downwards on Tuesday, as a court spokeswoman announced after the appeal trial.
The main defendant must therefore serve seven years and nine months in prison. His ex-wife received a sentence of two and a half years, while his accomplice must serve three years and five months in prison. The sentencing decision is not yet final.
The district court had already sentenced the defendants in 2021. Murder, as charged, could not be proven against the Germans at the time. The court was unable to clarify how the 19-year-old victim died. A bargeman had found her in a lock canal in the district of Nienburg in spring 2020 - unclothed and tied to a concrete slab and sunk in the river.
In the 2021 trial, the defendants were sentenced for other offenses, the main defendant to eight years in prison for, among other things, the serious forced prostitution of the victim. The then 41-year-old is said to have tried to market the young woman as a prostitute together with his best friend and his former partner - even though the young woman was unable to control her own sexuality due to paranoid schizophrenia.
The then 54-year-old co-defendant had received a prison sentence of three years and nine months in the first trial, while the then 40-year-old co-defendant was sentenced to two years and nine months in prison. The prosecution and defense appealed against the guilty verdict. In May, the Federal Court of Justice ruled that the sentences had to be retried, but that the verdict of the regional court was largely final.
In the appeal proceedings, the regional court said that it had now reduced the sentences for all three defendants. The court had taken into account the fact that the crime had been committed a long time ago. In addition, the living conditions of the two co-defendants had improved in the meantime.
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- The defense and prosecution both launched appeals against the original guilty verdict, initiating a revision process within the verden regional court for the three defendants involved in the case of the 19-year-old who drowned in the Weser.
- During the revision process, the verden regional court considered the length of time that had passed since the crime and the improved living conditions of two of the co-defendants, leading to the reduction of their sentences.
- Criminality in the case involved the serious forced prostitution of the victim by the main defendant, a 41-year-old man who attempted to market the young woman as a prostitute despite her inability to control her own sexuality due to paranoid schizophrenia.
- Men from the lower Saxony region were found guilty in the original trial, with the main defendant receiving an eight-year prison sentence and the two co-defendants being sentenced to three years and nine months and two years and nine months in prison, respectively.
- The verden regional court, in their judgments regarding the revision process, reduced the sentences of the three defendants, with the main defendant now facing seven years and nine months in prison, while his ex-wife and accomplice's sentences were also reduced accordingly.
Source: www.stern.de
