After the death drive on Kurfürstendamm with one dead and numerous seriously injured people, a preliminary psychiatric report suggests that the 29-year-old suspect is innocent. The public prosecutor’s office therefore submitted an application in the so-called security procedure to the Berlin Regional Court, the authority announced on Thursday. Such a procedure is sought if the alleged perpetrator could have been incapable of culpability at the time of the crime, for example due to a mental illness.
If the man’s incapacity proves true in the main hearing, “there would be no criminal liability,” the public prosecutor said. In this case, she strives for the accused to be placed in a psychiatric hospital. It is to be feared that without treatment he will commit further dangerous acts.
Driven in a school group
According to the public prosecutor’s office, the 29-year-old is said to have “deliberately” driven into a group of students from Hesse on June 8 with a car on the Ku’damm near Breitscheidplatz. A 51-year-old teacher was killed. A colleague and twelve students between the ages of 14 and 17 were injured, some critically.
The perpetrator then continued his journey and drove unabated across the junction with Marburger Strasse onto the opposite sidewalk. There he caught two men and a pregnant woman and also seriously injured them. Finally, the man with the vehicle crashed into the window of a perfume shop.
The accused has been in a forensic hospital since then. The public prosecutor’s office accuses the man in the application, among other things, of completed “treacherous murder” and 16 attempted murders.
