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CRIME

High court overturns murder charge for Berlin street racers

The Federal High Court on Thursday overturned a landmark ruling by a Berlin state court, which last year convicted two men for murder after they killed a man in an illegal street race.

High court overturns murder charge for Berlin street racers
The crash debris in western Berlin. Photo: DPA

The constitutional court found there was insufficient proof that the men had intended to take a life, which is a condition for a murder, rather than a manslaughter, conviction.

The court sent the case back to a lower court in the capital Berlin, where the landmark verdict was originally handed down in February 2017.

Hamdi H. and Marvin N. were then each sentenced to a maximum jail term of 15 years for their deadly race on February 1st 2016, but can now hope for a lesser conviction of negligent homicide.

The two, aged 24 and 26 at the time, were racing through western Berlin near the city's landmark KaDeWe shopping centre and running a series of red lights when Hamdi H. crashed at 160 kilometres (100 miles) per hour into a jeep.

The jeep's 69-year-old driver was killed instantly as his vehicle was hurled 70 metres (230 feet) down the road.

The prosecution argued that the two young men had casually accepted that they may kill someone, and that the crash car was effectively a “murder weapon”.

The defence lawyers had pleaded for a manslaughter conviction for Hamdi H. and a lesser charge of endangering street traffic for Marvin N.

During the original trial, a psychologist described one of the defendants as “extremely overly self-confident” and said he was determined to “win in order to boost his ego”.

Since the high-profile Berlin case, German laws have been toughened and illegal street races can now be punished by up to 10 years jail.

However, the higher sentences cannot be retroactively applied to the Berlin street race case.

ANTI-SEMITISM

Germany sees sharp rise in anti-Semitic acts

Anti-Semitic acts rose sharply in Germany last year, especially after war broke out between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in October, according to new figures released on Tuesday.

Germany sees sharp rise in anti-Semitic acts

The Federal Association of Research and Information Centres on Anti-Semitism (RIAS) documented 4,782 anti-Semitic “incidents” in 2023 – an increase of more than 80 per cent on the previous year.

More than half of the incidents – which included threats, physical attacks and vandalism – were registered after Palestinian militant group Hamas’s unprecedented October 7th attack on Israel, RIAS said.

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency last week also published figures showing a new record in anti-Semitic crimes in 2023.

A total of 5,164 crimes were recorded during the year, the agency said, compared with 2,641 in 2022.

Anti-Semitic crimes with a “religious-ideological motivation” jumped to 492 from just 33 the previous year, with the vast majority committed after October 7.

Felix Klein, the government’s commissioner for the fight against anti-Semitism, said the RIAS figures were “absolutely catastrophic”.

The Hamas attack had acted as an “accelerant” for anti-Semitism in Germany, he told a press conference in Berlin.

“Jewish life in Germany is under greater threat than it has ever been since the Federal Republic of Germany was founded,” he said.

The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,600 people, also mostly civilians, Gaza’s health ministry said.

Islamophobic incidents also increased dramatically in Germany last year, according to a separate report published on Monday.

The CLAIM alliance against Islamophobia said it had registered 1,926 attacks on Muslims in 2023, compared with just under 900 in 2023.

These included verbal abuse, discrimination, physical violence and damage to property.

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