The Trier public prosecutor’s office has demanded a life sentence and placement in a psychiatric facility for the suspected Trier gunman. When the 52-year-old accused drove amok on December 1, 2021 in Trier, Rhineland-Palatinate, five people were killed.
In the trial surrounding the fatal rampage in Trier at the end of 2020, the public prosecutor’s office demanded life imprisonment for the accused. The man was guilty of five counts of murder and attempted murder in 18 other cases, said chief public prosecutor Eric Samel on Friday in his pleading at the Trier district court. In this unusually “brutal and cruel act” there is a particular degree of guilt.
Because of the man’s mental illness, the public prosecutor’s office also requested that the 52-year-old be placed in a psychiatric hospital.
Five people were killed in the rampage on December 1, 2020: a nine-week-old baby, its father (45) and three women aged 73, 52 and 25. There were also numerous injuries and around 300 traumatized eyewitnesses.
The accused had used his “car as a weapon” to “specifically hunt passers-by,” said Samel. The goal was “maximum destruction”: He used the entire width of the pedestrian zone to kill or injure as many people as possible with his SUV at high speed. The victims “didn’t have a shred of a chance”. He caused immeasurable suffering.
The trial against the alleged gunman started in mid-August 2021 and is currently scheduled to end on August 16th. According to the opinion of a psychiatric expert, the accused suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and has reduced criminal responsibility. He has so far remained silent on the allegations.