Trier amok drive must be renegotiated
In December 2020, Bernd W. races through the pedestrian zone in Trier in his car and kills five people. He is sentenced to life imprisonment and placed in a psychiatric ward. However, the Federal Court of Justice now sees legal errors in the verdict.
The trial for the rampage in Trier with five fatalities must be reopened in parts. According to a decision by the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in Karlsruhe, the verdict of the Trier regional court was largely overturned due to legal errors. This means that the appeal of the accused Bernd W. has been upheld, the BGH announced. The reason: The Regional Court had not justified its assumption that the defendant had acted in a state of significantly reduced culpability without legal error. The decisions on the legal consequences were therefore also to be set aside.
During the rampage on December 1, 2020, Bernd W. raced through the pedestrian zone in Trier in his off-road vehicle and deliberately hit passers-by. Five people died in the attack, including a baby. There were also dozens of injured and traumatized people.
In August 2022, W. was sentenced to life imprisonment for multiple murders and multiple attempted murders at Trier Regional Court. The court also established the particular gravity of his guilt and ordered the 52-year-old to be placed in a closed psychiatric hospital.
According to the expert, W. suffers from paranoid schizophrenia with bizarre delusions - and is therefore of reduced culpability. The trained electrician remained silent about the allegations during the year-long trial. One day after the verdict, the driver's defense lawyer lodged an appeal.
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The Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe has identified numerous legal errors in the verdict of the Trier regional court, resulting in a partial retrial of the rampage case. The judgment, handed down in December 2020, involved a man named Bernd W., who deliberately ramped through Trier's pedestrian zone in an off-road vehicle, causing the death of five individuals, including a baby, and injuring many others. In August 2022, Bernd W. was sentenced to life imprisonment for multiple murders and attempted murders. The Regional Court also declared the gravity of his guilt and ordered his confinement in a secure psychiatric facility. However, due to the written judgment's lack of justification, the Federal Court of Justice annulled the verdict and ordered a new assessment of the psychological state of the accused, which is a significant development in the realm of criminality and international justice.
Source: www.ntv.de
