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A 55-year-old has been found guilty of attempted murder and dangerous bodily harm after poisoning her former partner.
The Berlin district court sentenced the woman to ten and a half years in prison.
The prosecutor had previously pleaded for a life sentence.
From June 2017, she initially administered small doses of the highly toxic heavy metal thallium to her then partner in order to make him sick and thus to bind him, the court said.
A year after the separation, she mixed a potentially fatal dose of thallium sulfate into a drink for the 48-year-old in a pub.
The act was apparently preceded by a complicated relationship between the perpetrator and the victim.
At the beginning of the relationship, the man was jealous and violent, but then there was a "role reversal", the court said.
Victim suffered from muscle paralysis and hair loss
The woman "was obsessed with maintaining the relationship at all costs, including the man's health," said the judge.
The victim suffered from muscle paralysis, severe pain and hair loss, among other things.
As a result of the poisoning, the man suffered irreparable nerve damage, according to the court.
After the separation, the 55-year-old German ordered her ex-boyfriend to go to a pub in July 2020 through a hired man to kill him, according to the court.
She insidiously mixed at least 2.5 grams of thallium sulfate into a drink for the 48-year-old at the counter.
"It could have killed him three times," said the judge.
It was only through luck that the man did not completely empty the glass.
The woman had admitted the second attack.
But she did not want to kill the man, but wanted to "get it back" for herself, she explained.
"I wanted him to fall ill, I wanted to be his savior." However, the statements hardly had a mitigating effect.
Because of the "overwhelming burden of proof", the confession was "almost worthless," said the judge.
The verdict is not yet legally binding.
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fek / dpa / AFP