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Courthouse in Munich: When his victim made a move, the man said he was scared and shot
Photo: Matthias Balk / dpa
A man in his mid-twenties climbs into the sports car with someone else with a sharp gun.
As the argument escalates, he shoots his victim three times in the head.
But is that also why he is a murderer?
The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) found in a case from Bavaria: No, because the man did not act insidiously - contrary to the decision of the Munich Regional Court.
Accordingly, the BGH overturned the judgment against the Munich man convicted of murder.
The court upheld the defendant's appeal and changed the guilty verdict from murder to manslaughter.
"The conviction for murder has no validity," says the decision of November 18, which the BGH has only now published.
The new trial is probably only about the sentence
The BGH referred the case back to another chamber of the Munich District Court I for a new hearing. There it will no longer be a guilty verdict, but primarily the sentence, which according to the law amounts to five to 15 years for manslaughter, but not life imprisonment can.
With regard to the amount, according to the BGH, the court must, for example, check whether there are new entries in the federal central register or whether the man's life situation has changed.
"The district court assumed without legal errors that the defendant's act was neither justified nor excused," the decision says.
"However, it considered the defendant's commission to be insidious (...), wrongly in law."
The chamber at that time, however, had classified the act as insidious.
That means that the man must have taken advantage of the innocence and defenselessness of his victim.
In the trial before the regional court, the shooter testified that he wanted to impress his victim and therefore got into his sports car with the gun.
When the man made a move, he got scared and shot.
"I deeply regret what I did," he said.
The young man's lawyer, Daniela Gabler, told the »Süddeutsche Zeitung« that she was assuming that everything would not be rolled up again from the beginning.
The subject of the new process will almost certainly only be the sentence.
All other determinations would apply.
The Munich District Court I sentenced the defendant to life imprisonment in June last year.
In addition, placement in an addiction clinic was ordered.
Escape in a delivery van from Stadelheim prison
The court had found it proven that the man, who was 24 at the time of the verdict, shot a 25-year-old in his car in March 2020.
The perpetrator is said to have had debts of 8,000 euros with him.
A passer-by had discovered the bloody body of the man in a sports car parked on the side of the road.
Before his trial, the young man had made headlines with a spectacular escape from his pre-trial detention in Munich's Stadelheim correctional facility.
He was hiding in a van but was arrested again the same day.
apr / dpa
