The main defendant in the Kusel police murder trial claims that he shot the two officers in self-defense. Prosecutor Orthen sees it completely differently. Orthen argued in his closing argument that not only the murder characteristic of greed was fulfilled.
In the trial of the two police officers killed near Kusel, the public prosecutor’s office has demanded life imprisonment for the main accused. The man was guilty of two murders, said senior public prosecutor Stefan Orthen in his plea to the Kaiserslautern district court. In fact, several murder characteristics were met and the act had “execution character” – therefore there was a particular severity of guilt, said Orthen.
Around five months after the start of the trial, the allegations of the prosecution were confirmed for the senior public prosecutor: At the end of January, the 39-year-old killed a young police officer and her colleagues during a night traffic check on a district road in the western Palatinate with shots in the head. “The killing of the police officers served to cover up commercial poaching,” said Orthen. In addition, the murder characteristic of greed was fulfilled: “Without the crime, he would no longer have been able to sell the game for a profit,” said the senior public prosecutor.
The act of violence caused nationwide horror. The co-defendant, like the main defendant, was guilty of commercial poaching. A penalty should be refrained from, however, because the 33-year-old made a significant contribution to the clarification, said Orthen.
During the trial, the main defendant admitted to having killed the police officer, but he shot in self-defense. He held the co-defendant responsible for the policewoman’s death, which he had always denied. The men were arrested shortly after the crime in neighboring Saarland. According to psychiatric reports, both are fully culpable. The verdict is expected to fall on November 30th.
