Trial involving musicians and rat poison in Hanover must be partially reopened
The defendant worked at an orchestra as the first concertmaster. According to the court, he felt bullied by the second concertmaster and harbored murder fantasies against him. Over the internet, he ordered a large quantity of the rat poison Brodifacoum. This substance already has a blood-thinning effect in small doses and can be lethal.
The second concertmaster, however, was not poisoned by the defendant. Instead, he visited his mother in a nursing home in September 2022. There, he mixed a portion of the poison into certain foods for her, as the court determined.
A few days later, the woman experienced bleeding. However, the poisoning was discovered in time and her life was saved. The court evaluated this act by the then 62-year-old man as an attempted murder and grievous bodily harm in its October judgment.
Moreover, the court believed that the defendant had served his colleague a dip on a bus trip a short time later, into which he had previously mixed the rat poison. Both of them suffered from prolonged bleeding, but were saved. The court evaluated this as bodily harm. It saw no intent to kill.
The defendant had only wanted to give his colleagues a jibe, as the court in Hanover explained, because they had not supported him enough in his dispute with the other concertmaster. He had not wanted to kill them, the court stated. The colleagues were significantly younger and healthier than the mother of the defendant, and he had relied on the fact that they would not die from the poisoning.
However, the prosecution appealed to the Federal Court of Justice regarding the second act, and was now successful there. The lower court had acted in favor of the defendant based on assumptions for which it had no concrete evidence, the Federal Court of Justice ruled. It therefore had to re-examine and decide on the second case.
The defendant's appeal was, however, rejected. The conviction for the first act, the poisoning of his mother, is thus legally binding. The court had originally sentenced the musician to a total sentence for both acts and imposed a sentence of six and a half years in prison.
- The first concertmaster, who was a musician, was attempting to harm his colleague by serving him food with rat poison mixed in, as the Hanover Regional Court determined, even though the colleague was not poisoned.
- Despite the defendant's claims that he only wanted to give his colleagues a jibe and not kill them, the court found him guilty of attempting to commit murder and causing bodily injury to them by poisoning their food.
- The defendant's mother suffered bodily injury when he mixed the rat poison into certain foods for her, as the court in October determined, leading to her experiencing bleeding, which could have been fatal if not discovered in time.
- The defendant, who was the first concertmaster, felt bullied by the second concertmaster and ordered a large quantity of rat poison, Brodifacoum, with intentions to harm him, but the second concertmaster was not poisoned by the defendant.
- The defendant, upon losing the appeal for the second act of poisoning his colleagues, will serve a total sentence of six and a half years in prison for both acts, including the attempted murder and bodily harm against his mother and colleagues.
