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Gas station crime scene on the evening of September 18, 2021: Here Mario N. shot the gas station employee Alexander W.
Photo: Christian Schulz / dpa
He was "worn down" by the corona measures.
This is how Mario N. put it himself.
For reasons of protection against infection, he was not allowed to go to his father's funeral or to the hospital to see his seriously injured mother.
There were no orders for his company, he could not pay the installments for the house.
This supposed bohei about this virus – Mario N. had no understanding for that.
When the cashier Alexander W. asked him at a gas station in Idar-Oberstein on the evening of September 18 last year to wear a mask - that's the only way he could get two six-packs of beer - Mario N. went crazy.
He drove home, got a loaded revolver from the nightstand drawer, drove back to the gas station and shot the 20-year-old.
"This rabble"
Mario N. is accused of murder out of malicious intent and base motives, he admitted the crime before the district court in Bad Kreuznach.
The process documents the radicalization of Mario N. One person seems to have played a role that should not be underestimated: his brother-in-law in America.
Mario N. sent him a final video message before the act.
N's sister, two years older, left Germany at the age of 18.
Her husband Jason W. works as a police officer in the USA, he is considered a gun enthusiast and supporter of Donald Trump.
On Mario N's laptop, investigators found a photo showing his brother-in-law's arsenal: two assault rifles, two pump-action guns, several small arms, including ammunition.
Jason W. taught him how to shoot, Mario N. said in court.
Excessive news
Above all, however, the investigators secured several terabytes of data on eleven devices that are said to have been in N's possession.
Including an intensive exchange between Mario N. and Jason W. – for years the two men have been regularly sending each other excessive video messages and chat messages.
These are played and read out in the courtroom, an interpreter translates from English.
They show N's anger long before the pandemic broke out.
Things are not going well for him, Mario N. speaks into the camera in February 2019.
In Germany, he says, "this rabble is still running around," and compared to "these Arabs," Mexicans in the US get along well.
In another recorded clip, Mario N. describes global warming as a “damn scam” – and Carola Rackete, who rescued refugees from the Mediterranean Sea as the captain of the Sea-Watch 3 in June 2019, as a “bitch”.
He scolds the press for insinuating that Rackete saved lives.
"The press is fake," N rages. "When I read the comments below the texts, I think: the Germans are the damn stupidest people."
"Little Bitch" Greta Thunberg
For Mario N., even then, two and a half years before the gas station employee was shot, there was only one exit strategy: "If Trump is re-elected, I'm really considering moving to the USA." Also because "damn Merkel" opened the borders .
more on the subject
Gas station murder trial: "I can't forgive you"
Confession after a fatal gas station attack: “I was worn down by the corona measures” Julia Jüttner reports from Bad Kreuznach
Process for deadly gas station attack in Idar-Oberstein: "He regrets the act" Julia Jüttner reports from Bad Kreuznach
How employees enforce the corona rules: "Since the murder of the gas station employee I've had a bad feeling" Logged by Maren Hoffmann, Matthias Kaufmann and Franca Quecke
The self-employed software developer films himself sending messages to his brother-in-law, running across a large meadow or sitting at home on his red sofa, sipping an American whiskey bourbon.
He rants about the "little bitch" Greta Thunberg, when he "almost pissed his pants" when she appeared at the UN climate summit.
"She's mentally retarded!" N. calls into the camera.
At the time, Trump did the only right thing: "He ignored her."
Is Mario N's anger building?
N. once wrote about a left-wing activist who had himself sterilized because of climate change: »Germans invented gas chambers for such cases.
It's a real shame they're out of style.' And he writes that YouTube has been ordered to censor reports on Covid.
"Like everything that goes against official propaganda."
The self-representation in the form of messages to the brother-in-law is relevant to the procedure.
They allow conclusions to be drawn as to the extent to which an innocent citizen has become radicalized here as a result of the pandemic and lockdown.
In February 2020, Mario N. wrote in a chat with an acquaintance: "I no longer see a solution that does not involve violence." In October 2020, he sounded more specific: "I'll end up in jail this year for murder or manslaughter."
At the end of the day of the hearing, his two defense attorneys, Alexander Klein and Axel Küster, asked the interpreter to translate more messages from the chats, which were several hundred pages long.
The stakes are too high for Mario N.
