Icon: enlarge
The trial started at the end of January: The defendant in the courtroom
Photo: Paul Zinken / dpa
The evening back in summer 2020 began with bubble tea.
This is what your best friend told us on Tuesday before the 32nd major criminal chamber of the Berlin Regional Court.
The two girls had known each other since kindergarten, both are 15 years old.
At the end of the summer evening, one of them is dead.
The witness would rather be used by the presiding judge Matthias Schertz than accepted.
She seems shy, she speaks softly, timidly.
A few meters away from her sits Bekim H., 42. He is said to have murdered her friend on August 5, 2020 sometime after 2 a.m. after an attempted rape.
The witness does not look at the accused.
The girls wanted to spend the night together
The two girls met in the early evening of August 4th, 2020. They bought bubble tea in a shopping center, then went to Lichtenberg City Park.
Another friend wanted to celebrate their 15th birthday with them and two other girls.
On the way to the park, the friends bought vodka, brandy and passion fruit juice at a kiosk.
The five girls had fun in the park, they listened to music, drank, and partied.
The two friends withdrew in between.
They had argued the day before and had to speak out.
At around 10.30 p.m., the group of girls moved from the park to the birthday child's apartment to eat pizza.
Shortly before midnight, they went out again to toast their friend's new year with beer outside.
The witness said goodbye at about 0.40 a.m.
She had an appointment with a boy in Neukölln.
Afterwards she wanted to stay with her friend.
The two girls were still texting each other.
"She asked me about when I would be back because she was tired," says the witness.
"When are you coming?" Judge Schertz reads the message.
It was sent at 1:33 a.m.
The witness did not leave Neukölln until about 2:40 a.m.
She wrote several messages to her friend ("Hey, are you home?") And kept calling her.
But the girl didn't answer.
A good twelve hours later, the police found the girl's body in Rummelsburg Bay.
She was "confident, cheeky," says her friend
"What kind of girl was she?" Asks the judge.
She was "self-confident, cheeky", says her best friend, "a bit scratchy" and "quite vulnerable, but she didn't show that".
They would have loved to see Barbie films together over the weekend.
But her friend had already had her first sexual experiences.
Once she made an appointment via a dating app with a boy who turned out to be 18 years older.
The friend had told the witness that she was very drunk at the time and that he had taken advantage of her condition.
Judge Schertz asks about her friend's alcohol and drug consumption.
The witness reports that she recently drank alcohol more often, perhaps too often.
And she knows that her friend smoked weed once.
"Would she have been open to try other drugs?" Asks the judge.
"Yes, definitely," says the witness.
"She looked happy"
The attorney general asks what condition her friend was in when she last saw her that night.
She was drunk and in a good mood, says the friend.
"She looked happy."
The birthday child at the time also testified in court on that day.
She says the girl left the party around 1:20 p.m.
"She wanted to go home." But it never got there.
Videos from surveillance cameras show the 15-year-old getting out of an S-Bahn at Ostkreuz S-Bahn station at around 1:35 a.m., less than five minutes from her home.
About ten minutes later, the defendant can be seen on the recordings.
At around 2 a.m., both of them leave the station together in the direction of Rummelsburger Bucht.
At the same time, Matthias C., 48 and without a permanent address, was lying in his tent on the Rummelsburger Bucht playing around on his cell phone.
"And suddenly I hear footsteps behind me," he says in court.
He heard a couple.
"In terms of voice, a young girl and clearly an older man." He heard the two of them trying to climb over a fence.
They would have laughed and whispered.
"The girl was obviously having a hard time getting over the fence." The man had told him how to do it.
"Why do we have to go over here now?" The girl asked.
"Because you're too lazy to go around outside," the witness called from his tent.
"There was a short silence."
"How was the mood between the two of them?" Asks the judge.
"Happy," says Matthias C.
The girl's body was found around 30 meters from his tent.
"I heard nothing, heard nothing." No screams, nothing, he says.
He reproaches himself for staying in the tent at the time, "that I didn't go out."
The defendant is trembling all over
The defendant Bekim H. went to the police at around 1.30 p.m. on the same day, accompanied by a lawyer.
"There could have been a serious crime at Rummelsburger Bucht for which his client would be guilty," the lawyer said.
That was what a police officer had said last week during the trial.
With the accused and without a lawyer, police drove to the bay.
There they found the dead girl.
The defendant cried.
He was sorry, he said.
He doesn't deserve to live.
Dogs that bite would also be shot.
He is not better.
He is afraid of the hatred that will now befall him.
But he didn't deserve it any other way.
In the process, Bekim H. listens to the policeman's words with bowed head.
He's shaking all over.
Icon: The mirror