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The BGH complained that the court had not examined whether the defendants had instead committed a criminal offense for conspiring to commit commercial and gang fraud or for fraudulently concluding insurance contracts.
© Rolf Vennenbernd/dpa/Symbolbild
A couple fakes their husband's death in order to collect money from 14 life and accident insurance policies.
Although a verdict has already been handed down, both have to appear in court again.
The acquittals should be renegotiated.
Kiel - The faked death of a man in the Baltic Sea will be reopened this Friday before the district court in Kiel: three years after the verdict for attempted insurance fraud, the lively man and his wife now have to answer in court again.
The couple had tried to make money from a total of 14 insurance policies through the man's alleged death.
Only in one case was there a suspended sentence, but in 13 other cases there was no sentence.
These acquittals were objected to by the Federal Court of Justice (BGH), and the cases are now to be reheard in the trial.
The couple is said to have faked the man's death in a boating accident in the summer of 2019 in order to get a good four million euros paid out from life and accident insurance companies.
A motorboat was purchased specifically for this purpose and it sank on the Baltic Sea.
The wife reported her husband missing three days later, but the police became suspicious early on.
An expert discovered that the boat had been tampered with, and the insurance companies were not satisfied with a simple death report from the police, but instead demanded a death certificate.
Instead of sinking in the Baltic Sea, the man hid for months in Hamburg and also with his mother in Schwarmstedt in Lower Saxony.
The money from the 14 term life and accident insurance policies was not paid out.
In 2021, the regional court sentenced the now 56-year-old and his wife of the same age to suspended sentences of one year and nine months or one year for attempting to defraud an accident insurance company.
In this conviction, the couple was only found guilty in one of a total of 14 charged cases of insurance fraud.
In the 13 other cases of attempted fraud against other insurance companies, the defendants were acquitted because they could not have expected payouts without further steps such as submitting a death certificate, the court argued.
Therefore, preparatory acts remained unpunished.
The BGH in Leipzig overturned these acquittals.
He complained that the court had not examined whether the defendants had instead committed a criminal offense for conspiring to commit commercial and gang fraud or for fraudulently concluding insurance contracts.
Ten dates have been scheduled for the newly reopened process.
The last one is currently scheduled for May 5th.
dpa