A four-month-old infant does not survive the afternoon with his father on Sylt. The 52-year-old shakes his son with great violence – minutes later he is dead. The accused claims that he only wanted to help the baby. However, the judges do not believe him.
More than six years after the death of a three-month-old baby on Sylt, its 52-year-old father has been sentenced to nine years in prison for manslaughter. He shook the four-month-old baby in September 2016 in Westerland on Sylt with the most massive force and considerable force, so that the boy suffered a shaking trauma and very likely died just a few minutes after the crime, said the presiding judge. The accused was found guilty of manslaughter.
The accused Pole, who lived on Sylt, took care of his son during the day from September 4th to 6th, 2016 because his mother had to work, said the presiding judge. The couple were separated at the time. The mother did not have any other childcare options, and the man offered to take care of his son. After the crime, the father called the emergency services through his boss at the time, but the baby was already dead.
Prosecutors had asked for a nine-year prison sentence for manslaughter. The defense pleaded for acquittal: The evidence of the crime was not led. The accused denied the allegations in the process and stated, among other things, that the baby had choked on milk and that he wanted to save him. According to the court spokesman, the court considered this to be refuted with reference to forensic assessments. The verdict is not yet legally binding.
The court issued six months of imprisonment as compensation for the length of the proceedings. They are considered already served. The man was charged in 2017, but the trial was delayed because it was not initially a matter of detention. The accused, who was back in Poland, was released due to lack of grounds for detention. That only changed in the summer of last year because official summonses from the court no longer reached the accused at his address in the neighboring country. The court assumed that there was a risk of absconding and had him taken into custody. He was then transferred to Germany.
