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The psychiatric expert had classified the defendant as fully culpable
Photo: Daniel Karmann / dpa
A woman in Regensburg has to answer in court for the death of her newborn - the public prosecutor has now waived the murder charge in his plea.
Instead, he called for a six-year sentence for manslaughter - albeit not in a less serious case.
The two defense lawyers pleaded for a two-year suspended sentence for negligent homicide.
The verdict is expected on Friday.
The defendant did not provide any information in court and did not say any last words.
Immediately after the crime, she first said it was a stillbirth.
She later said she thought the child was dead.
That could not be refuted in the process.
The woman gave birth to a girl on Christmas Day 2020 at lunchtime in the bathroom of an apartment in Regensburg.
According to the coroner, the newborn was healthy and lived for at least half an hour or an hour.
What the mother did then remained unclear.
At some point she packed the baby - still alive or already dead - with towels in a plastic bag and this in turn with rubbish in a bag.
She put the bag in a garbage can in front of the house.
Motive "blatant selfishness"
According to the autopsy report, the child died from suffocation or hypothermia, or a combination of both. The prosecutor is convinced that the 25-year-old - a German citizen - killed the newborn. The motive was "blatant selfishness". The psychiatric expert had classified the accused as fully culpable - despite the stressful situation caused by the birth and a slightly below average intelligence with a value of 74.
The public prosecutor's office assumes that the woman killed the child in order not to be considered a liar because of the concealed pregnancy and in order not to endanger her new living situation in a shared apartment.
Objectively, that should be seen as base motives.
However, he explained in his plea, the woman was not subjectively aware of this.
When she killed the baby, she did not realize that it would be viewed as a reprehensible act in society.
Because of this, the prosecutor moved away from the murder charge.
The defense lawyers assumed that the woman mistakenly believed the child to be dead and classified the incident - putting the supposedly dead child in a bag and in the garbage can - as negligent homicide.
The woman already has an older child who is living with a foster family.
The presiding judge Michael Hammer had pointed out in the course of the process that a conviction for manslaughter in a less serious case or for negligent homicide was conceivable.
kim / dpa
