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Entrance of the Berlin district court (symbol image)
Photo: Taylan Gökalp/ picture alliance/dpa
The Berlin district court has found a man guilty of manslaughter in a minor case, who had killed his wife.
It sentenced the 78-year-old to two years in prison on probation.
According to the court, the accused took care of the 79-year-old in a self-sacrificing manner.
He killed because he wanted to redeem his sick wife - and he saw no way out of being overwhelmed, the verdict said.
He had failed to organize adequate support.
The woman's physical and mental condition had deteriorated sharply since 2021.
She was bedridden, suffering from shortness of breath and dementia.
On May 31, 2022, he suffocated his wife with a pillow in their shared apartment in Berlin-Hakenfelde.
After the crime, the accused wrote a farewell letter to their daughter, asking her for forgiveness.
He informed the police by phone and opened the door of the third-floor apartment before jumping over the balcony railing.
Paramedics saved him.
The accused had confessed.
He and his wife, who is from Norway, had experienced 40 wonderful years.
Her condition gradually deteriorated.
"She was skin and bones, I did everything for her, I did it out of love," he said at the trial.
He also washed her and changed her diapers.
By the time he was finished - "it was unbearable for me to see her suffer like that".
A few months before the crime, his application for a care level was rejected.
In a conversation with the medical service, which was done by phone because of the corona pandemic, his wife claimed that she was fine.
The court assumed a reduced ability to control.
According to a psychiatric report, the man was severely depressed at the time of the crime.
The prosecutor had asked for two and a half years in prison.
The woman was "dependent on him and not tired of life".
The defense attorney asked for a suspended sentence.
The verdict is not yet legally binding.
jpz/dpa
