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Photo: Frank Rumpenhorst / dpa
Around a year and a half after the fatal shooting at a 31-year-old man in the city center of Cottbus, the district court of the Brandenburg city sentenced two men to life imprisonment for collective murder.
The court saw it as proven that the two 31 and 33-year-old defendants wanted to kill their victim, a court spokesman said.
They would have acted out of treachery.
The victim is said to have tried to escape after being hit.
According to the court, however, the defendants followed him and shot the defenseless man several times in the back.
A total of six shots were fired from a few meters away.
Court sees vigilante justice
The judges also saw "other lower motives".
The accused had taken the law into their own hands and practiced vigilante justice.
They would have wanted to take revenge for a perceived humiliation of one of the accused after a previous physical confrontation with the victim.
They would also have wanted to forestall another argument.
With the judgment, the court complied with the public prosecutor's request for life imprisonment.
The defense lawyers of the two defendants, however, had demanded a maximum of seven years in prison.
The act committed on March 1, 2020 on the street had caused great discussions in Cottbus.
Both the perpetrators and the victim were assigned to a local scene of rockers, right-wing extremists and hooligans.
wit / AFP
