The district court of Wuppertal has sentenced four people for a brutal robbery to a pensioner to prison terms of two years and nine months to eleven and a half years.
It found two defendants guilty of blackmail, dangerous assault and robbery. Two others, including one woman, were convicted of aiding and abetting.
The then 82-year-old retiree was ambushed at the end of May 2017 in his home in Haan, tied up and beaten and kicked for hours. The perpetrators eventually dragged him half naked to the terrace of his house, poured him with gasoline and set fire to the building.
They threatened to kill him, the senior had testified. He escaped the death of fire only by being able to roll himself from the terrace onto the lawn of his garden. He still feels sick, he has trouble with the insurance and his burnt out house is still uninhabitable, he said during the trial.