As of: March 6, 2024, 6:29 p.m
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Files are on the table before a trial in a regional court.
© Swen Pförtner/dpa/Symbolbild
A woman's flight to Germany ended last summer in Saxony - fatally.
She dies in a van that speeds away from the police.
The driver and a companion are put on trial.
Dresden - Almost eight months after the fatal accident involving a van full of refugees on the A17 motorway, the driver was sentenced to the maximum penalty for murder in one case and dangerous bodily harm in seven cases.
A criminal chamber of the Dresden Regional Court imposed life imprisonment for the 23-year-old, also for smuggling in foreigners for commercial and gang purposes, resulting in death.
She handed down a three-year prison sentence for a 25-year-old co-defendant who drove an escort vehicle with migrants for smuggling in foreigners.
The judgments are not legally binding.
The judges saw it as proven that the two young men from Eastern Europe illegally brought people to Germany without entry or residence permits in exchange for money.
On July 13, they were traveling in two vehicles with migrants from the Czech Republic when one of them noticed a federal police patrol near Bad Gottleuba-Berggiesshübel and accelerated.
Presiding judge Herbert Pröls described what happened when he drove away in a dangerous manner, at high speed, sometimes on the right and overtaking on the hard shoulder.
The journey ended in a stubble field when the car left the highway at a point without a guardrail, rolled over several times and overturned.
The people in the truck bed couldn't get out.
A 44-year-old from Turkey died at the scene of the accident and seven people were seriously injured, said Pröls.
The driver, who had a previous conviction and was on probation, was arrested, the second accused only later - he had continued to his destination in Dresden.
The criminal chamber assumed that the 23-year-old's disastrous escape was an “act of cover-up” in order to cover up another crime, smuggling.
“He didn’t care at all what happened to the people in the truck bed,” said Pröls.
He subordinated everything to his goal of not getting caught.
It was clear to him that otherwise he would “have to be in prison for several years.”
dpa