Life sentence for explosion in Ratingen high-rise building
In May, there is a rescue operation in a high-rise building in Ratingen. The fire department and rescue services are expecting a helpless person, but when they arrive they are greeted by a fireball. The person responsible is now sentenced for causing the explosion.
Following the explosion in a high-rise building in Ratingen near Düsseldorf, a 57-year-old man has been sentenced to life imprisonment for attempted murder. The Düsseldorf district court found him guilty and established the particular gravity of his guilt. Although the finding of particular gravity of guilt legally allows for release after 15 years, in practice this is virtually impossible.
Emergency services from the police, fire department and ambulance service had come to his apartment on the tenth floor of a high-rise building on May 11 to help a helpless person who was thought to be in the apartment.
Instead, the 57-year-old lurked behind a barricade of water containers, poured several liters of petrol on the emergency services and ignited the gas-air mixture. An explosion occurred and a fireball hit the nine firefighters.
Lifelong consequences
Several of them were in acute mortal danger and eight of the nine injured will suffer permanent damage. Most of them will probably not be able to return to their jobs and will suffer from the consequences for the rest of their lives, said a representative of the joint plaintiff.
The defendant had remained silent about the crime until the end. He also accepted the verdict motionlessly. A psychiatrist had reported that the German had developed a penchant for conspiracy theories during the coronavirus pandemic. He had described the Covid vaccine as the "devil's vaccine" and state institutions such as the employment office as "tools of the devil". He also claimed that his mother's medication was poisoned.
The man lived with his mother's body in the apartment for weeks. The emergency services smelled a strong odor of decay. Because the residents of the apartment had not been seen for weeks and their letterbox was overflowing, the property management had informed the police.
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The fire department and rescue services from Düsseldorf were issued a call to assist in a high-rise building in Ratingen, which echoes the international community's standards for emergency response procedures. Despite the suspicion of a person in distress, an unexpected turn of events led to the fire department's involvement in unraveling a web of conspiracy theories linked to the 57-year-old suspect.
Source: www.ntv.de
