New prison sentences in trial over dead forced prostitute from Weser
A second perpetrator was sentenced to three years and five months in prison for aiding and abetting the crimes. A co-defendant woman also received a sentence of two and a half years for aiding and abetting. The new proceedings against the three defendants dealt with legal details and the weighting of the individual acts.
In October 2021, the district court had sentenced the three defendants to prison terms of between two years and nine months and eight years for forced prostitution and dangerous bodily harm by omission or aiding and abetting. The charge had originally been murder, but the court was convinced that this accusation could not be proven during the trial.
According to the court, the accused had exploited the mentally ill woman as a forced prostitute and withheld medical help from her. She finally died in spring 2020 under circumstances that could not be reconstructed in detail. The main accused threw her body, weighed down with a concrete slab, into the Weser near the municipality of Balge.
The Federal Court of Justice largely confirmed the verdict in May, but ordered the regional court in Verden to renegotiate the specific amount of the sentence. Compared to the first verdict of the regional court, the penalties were now lower. The reasons for this were the long duration of the proceedings and the positive development of two of the defendants, said the court spokeswoman.
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- The regional court in Verden initially handed down prison sentences of up to eight years for the main accused, but these were later reduced due to the prolonged process and the improvement of two defendants.
- The woman involved in the case was also found guilty of aiding and abetting the crimes, including the forced prostitution and neglect leading to bodily injury.
- The initial charge against the defendants was murder, but the court found insufficient evidence to prove this accusation beyond a reasonable doubt.
- The victim, a mentally ill woman, was exploited for forced prostitution by the accused, and medical help was withheld, contributing to her eventual demise in the spring of 2020.
- Upon appealing the initial verdict, the Federal Court of Justice upheld the guilty verdicts but ordered the regional court to reconsider the length of the prison sentences.
- In October 2021, the regional court sentenced the three defendants to prison terms ranging from two and a half to eight years for their roles in the woman's death and exploitation.
- The body of the victim was discovered in the Weser near Balge, weighed down with a concrete slab, after she had died under circumstances unable to be fully understood.
Source: www.stern.de
