BERLIN (AP) — A German man was found guilty Tuesday of murder and attempted murder for a high-speed car rampage in the southwestern city of Trier in Dec. 2020 that killed five people and seriously injured more than a dozen.
The Trier regional court sentenced the 52-year-old man to life in prison and ordered that he be held in a secure psychiatric hospital.
German news agency dpa reported that judges concluded the man, whose name wasn’t released for privacy reasons, had intentionally zig-zagged through a pedestrian zone to kill or maim as many people as possible.
Those who died were a nine-week-old baby, its father, and three women aged 25, 52 and 73. Eighteen people were seriously injured.
Experts testified that the man suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and delusions that involved a bizarre government plot against him. Investigators said he had been living for days in the loaned Land Rover SUV used in the attack.
The defendant, a trained electrician, refused to testify during the trial.
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