Life sentence for German carnival car attacker
December 16, 2021
A court in the German city of Kassel on Thursday handed a life sentence to a 31-year-old man accused of ramming crowds of spectators at a carnival parade in the town of Volksmarsen in February 2020.
The court found the man, identified only as Maurice P. under German identity protection guidelines, guilty on 88 counts of attempted murder linked to dangerous bodily injury and one case of attempted murder. He was also found guilty of dangerous driving.
The court also ruled that there was a "particular severity of guilt" in the crime, which in Germany means that the accused will not be automatically eligible for a parole hearing after 15 years as is usual with other life sentences.
During the attack on the Rose Monday parade on February 24, 2020, 88 people were injured, including 26 children. Some of the injuries were critical.
The man has refused to give any reason for his act.
What happened in the Volkmarsen attack?
Maurice P., aged 29 at the time, drove his silver Mercedes into revelers at the procession without braking at a speed of 50-60 kilometers per hour (31-37 miles per hour). Of the 88 people injured, two women sustained such critical injuries that they were in danger of dying for several weeks.
The car plowed some 42 meters (almost 140 feet) through the crowd.
Some 150 people have been negatively affected or traumatized by the incident, prosecutors said.
They accused Maurice P. of planning the attack in advance and setting up a dashboard camera in his car in order to record it.
The parade on Rose Monday is the highlight of the carnival season in many parts of Germany and attracts huge crowds. Volkmarsen is located in the central German state of Hesse.
What do we know about the attacker's mental state?
A psychiatric assessment of Maurice P. concluded that he suffers from a severe personality disorder that includes narcissistic, schizophrenic and paranoid traits.
However, he was not deemed to be in need of stationary psychiatric care.
tj/msh (dpa, AFP)