Five months after the New Year’s Eve riots in Berlin, a 23-year-old was sentenced to an eight-month suspended sentence in a first public trial. The district court in Berlin-Tiergarten found Nasser W. guilty of assaulting a law enforcement officer in a particularly serious case and of attempted dangerous bodily harm on Wednesday.
According to the court’s findings, the accused threw a firecracker at a police officer in the Gesundbrunnen district on New Year’s Eve. The firecracker landed right in front of the officer’s feet, but he was able to kick it away and was not injured. The official was on site to secure a fire brigade operation with colleagues. This had been called to an apartment fire.
The 23-year-old admitted in the process that he had thrown a cracker. But he accidentally landed in front of the police officer. He denied a targeted attack.
With its judgment, the court complied with the request of the public prosecutor’s office in full. W.’s defense attorney, on the other hand, had pleaded for an acquittal. On New Year’s Eve, emergency and rescue services were massively attacked in Berlin and other cities. In the capital alone, 33 emergency services were injured and, according to the police, 145 people were arrested, but they were later released.
According to the court, another trial against someone involved in the riots in Berlin has been underway since May – albeit not publicly because it is a young person. Four people had already been sentenced to fines in the penal order proceedings.
