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District Court of Mönchengladbach

Photo: Roberto Pfeil / dpa

A 75-year-old man from Viersen hit his sleeping wife nine times with a hammer and killed her. Half a year after the brutal attack, the man has now been sentenced to life imprisonment.

True, the pensioner had confessed to the crime. Until the end, however, there remained inconsistencies regarding a possible motive.

According to the defendant's testimony, he wanted to spare his 73-year-old wife poverty in old age. The couple had repeatedly supported their son financially and went into debt for it. These debts were life-threatening, the defendant told the court. He saw no other way out than to commit the crime.

Debts were manageable, according to the court

For the court, the reasoning was hardly comprehensible. According to the testimony of a bank employee, a debt of about 32,000 euros "was still manageable even at that age," said the presiding judge Martin Alberring. If you hadn't supported your now 47-year-old son so massively, there would have been no bottleneck at all," he reproached the defendant. From the court's point of view, the crime remains mysterious.

The chronically ill and professionally unsuccessful son lives in Portugal and constantly needed help, the defendant had stated. His father gave him just under 2000,<> euros a month - two-thirds of his pension.

No evidence of affectation

The couple had sold their home years earlier to pay off existing liabilities and had moved into a rented apartment. Before the crime, the rent is said to have been increased.

The 47-year-old son is said to have used his father's debit card even after his arrest and continued to withdraw money from Portugal. He had been summoned as a witness by the Regional Court of Mönchengladbach, but did not appear.

There were no indications of an act of affect, said the chairman in the reasons for the verdict. Neither had the spouses quarreled before the crime, nor had the pensioner been disinhibited by alcohol. A psychiatric expert had classified the man as fully culpable at the time of the crime.

The 75-year-old had made extensive confessions in court. The verdict is not yet final.

ala/dpa