Frankfurt/Main (dpa/lhe) – Five climate activists have been sentenced to suspended sentences for abseiling on Autobahn 5 near Frankfurt. Four of the accused, aged between 24 and 31, each received seven months’ probation on Wednesday, one six months. The Frankfurt district court assumed the facts of the coercion. The “Frankfurter Rundschau” had previously reported on it.
With their action in October 2020, the demonstrators caused the busy motorway to be completely blocked during morning rush hour traffic near the Airlift Memorial at Frankfurt Airport. Vehicles backed up for miles, police said, while officers removed the activists from the highway. At that time, the protest action was directed against the clearing work at the construction site of the A49 in the Dannenröder forest.
Nevertheless, the participants in the abseiling action were not charged or convicted of dangerous intervention in road traffic because there was no specific danger to individual road users.
In the three-day main hearing, the accused only commented on general environmental issues, but not on the specific allegations. The public prosecutor’s office assumed coercion in a particularly serious case and therefore demanded slightly higher penalties. The verdict is not yet final – appeals from both sides are expected.
