Two men die in a knife attack and one is seriously injured.
The alleged perpetrator is now on trial.
The process is met with great interest - and begins with a confession.
Frankenthal – With a confession by the accused, the trial for double murder and attempted murder before the Frankenthal District Court began on Friday.
The 26-year-old explained with the help of an interpreter that he thought the two male victims were "bad people" who wanted to harm his partner and her children.
The process is about a bloody act on October 18, 2022 in Ludwigshafen.
The hearing started with a large crowd of spectators and under strong security precautions in the city in the north-east of the Palatinate.
The public prosecutor's office accuses the man from Somalia of murdering two men on the street in Ludwigshafen-Oggersheim with a kitchen knife and of seriously injuring a customer in a shop.
He is said to have thrown the severed right forearm of one of the victims onto the balcony of his former girlfriend.
According to the public prosecutor's office, the accused attacked the victims, although he knew that the men did not know his former partner: "After the investigation, the expert said that the accused had told him that out of anger and jealousy he had deliberately attacked German men have."
The defendant, dressed in dark clothing, was led into the courtroom in handcuffs and ankle cuffs.
At the start of the trial, he held a gray folder in front of his face.
The presiding judge said the acts caused "untold suffering and pain".
But no matter how shocking the events are, the hearing must be objective and impartial.
The allegations: The accused is said to have killed a 20-year-old with a knife with a blade length of around 20 centimeters because his girlfriend had left him and he was convinced that she had a new partner.
A 35-year-old tried to stop him - the attacker also fatally injured him.
The man is said to have seriously injured a 27-year-old customer in a shop with the knife.
Police officers disabled the attacker with four shots.
Before the trial began, the father of the 20-year-old victim said in front of the courtroom: "I expect a just sentence." When asked by journalists what that should look like, he replied: "Life imprisonment.
And probably with preventive detention, that would be the correct punishment for this person. ”He is going into the process because he hopes to find answers to open questions, said the father.
He and his wife have suffered greatly to this day.
"We still have to fight today, have sleepless nights."
The lawyer for the seriously injured man, who is acting as a joint plaintiff, said it was "very important to his client that it might be found out what the motive was".
"And of course how it happened." He has hardly any memories of the crime.
The 27-year-old is physically "actually pretty good" today, lawyer Philipp Moritz Hug continued.
Mentally, however, it is "of course difficult", especially now for the process.
The accused, who last lived in Neustadt an der Weinstraße, answered questions about himself after the indictment had been read out with the help of an interpreter.
He left Somalia "at the age of 17 or 18" and traveled via Ethiopia, Malta, Sweden and Denmark and arrived in Frankfurt/Main by plane in November 2015.
After stays in Mainz and Koblenz, he was assigned to Neustadt.
When asked by the judge whether the escape was dangerous, the accused said through his interpreter: "To be honest - it wasn't that bad either." He had repeatedly considered leaving Germany.
"I honestly never got here."
Regarding the fact, he explained: "I was angry." He approached the men, asked them something, then pulled the knife out of a pocket and first stabbed the 20-year-old.
"All I had in my head was: This is the man.
There is an outstanding score between us.” When the second man, a 35-year-old, “interfered”, he too “got the knife”.
He severed the 20-year-old's forearm and threw it on the woman's balcony.
He doesn't know why.
He approached the third man, a 27-year-old, in a shop and then stabbed him.
According to the expert, the accused is guilty.
He faces life imprisonment with a determination of the particular severity of his guilt and placement in preventive detention.
The trial is scheduled to last 14 days until May.
dpa