For decades he led a life as an innocent citizen.
A pensioner has to spend a good part of the rest of his life in prison for attempted murder - and despite everything still gets off lightly.
Karlsruhe - He is calm and very focused on the verdict because of his hearing loss: An 88-year-old man has to go to prison for five and a half years for attempted murder of his son-in-law and serious arson.
The judges of the Karlsruhe Regional Court also found him guilty on Tuesday for dangerous bodily harm.
In March 2021, the German first doused the terrace of his daughter's house in Malsch (Karlsruhe district) and then doused his son-in-law with an accelerator and set it on fire.
"They just flicked a match in his direction," said the presiding judge, Fernando Sanchez-Hermosilla, in his just under an hour's verdict.
"You had come to terms with the fact that it was burning and you didn't care."
Sanchez-Hermosilla explained in detail how much the accused had been driven by "sheer hatred" and blind anger when he made the decision to act.
“Rented a car, straightened the bucket,” was a calendar entry by the 88-year-old shortly before the arson attack.
He drove to the house with the bucket full of gasoline, poured the fuel on the terrace and the son-in-law, who had only come to the door because of the noise.
The 60-year-old, who appeared as a joint plaintiff, suffered burns on his arms and hands and is still traumatized to this day.
He was awarded 12,000 euros in compensation for pain and suffering.
The damage to the house amounts to around 1.4 million euros.
The 88-year-old was convinced that his daughter had ruined and cheated on him financially.
Previously, he had given her his property for tax reasons, he wanted to reverse the donation and threatened the couple even before the fateful evening in March.
His thinking was completely restricted to the enemy image of his daughter and, above all, the hated son-in-law.
It is precisely this fanatical fixation on teaching the two of them a lesson that is also a sign of a possible beginning dementia.
According to the court, the psychiatric expert could not rule this out - the result: "We are therefore assuming that you were less at fault," said the presiding judge.
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The relatively mild sentence - the court had largely followed the motion of the man's defense lawyer - also arose from further considerations: The 88-year-old was now ruined himself, more or less confessed and previously led an inconspicuous life.
The judges also credited the 88-year-old with his old age: the hope must remain that he will continue to live his life at large.
"We must not take this hope away from you." (Az: 1 Ks 760 Js 11623/21) dpa
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