German court finds teen guilty in school shooting

A court in the southern German city of Würzberg on Monday sentenced a 15-year-old boy to eight years and six months in juvenile detention for murdering a 14-year-old boy who was a pupil at the same school.

The court had to decide whether the shooting, which the accused had admitted carrying out during the trial, was a case of planned murder or of second-degree, unpremeditated murder.

State prosecutors, who argued that the murder had been carried out with malice — one element that can lead to a murder conviction under German law — as the bullet hit the victim in the back of the head, had called for eight years and nine months detention in a therapy facility with the option of more severe detention.

In its verdict, the court has accepted that line of reasoning.

Defending lawyers, for their part, argued that the killing was not premeditated, calling for a six-year sentence for second-degree murder.

The accused, a German national, claimed that the shooting was not deliberate, apologizing to the Italian victim's loved ones and said he was terribly sorry for the death of his fellow pupil.

The shooting occurred last September at a school in Lohr am Main, 37 km (23 miles) northwest of Würzburg in the southern state of Bavaria.

The trial, which has been underway since May, took place behind closed doors because of the accused's age.

tj/wmr (dpa, AFP) 

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