display

It was 6 a.m. when a special police unit stormed an apartment in Gelsenkirchen.

Two shots are fired.

One of the officers is fatally hit - despite the bulletproof vest.

The perpetrator was convicted on Tuesday.

The punishment: life imprisonment for murder.

"You are a policeman hater and wanted to kill a policeman," said Judge Jörg Schmitt when giving the grounds for the judgment of the Essen jury to the defendant's address.

The 29-year-old German got caught in a “completely confused view of people and the world”.

He had been busy killing a police officer for a long time.

That emerges from searches on the Internet.

It was April 29, 2020. The police had received information that the accused was in drugs and had weapons.

He had been under observation for two days.

A SEK with nine officers was finally brought in for the planned search of the apartment.

display

The 28-year-old policeman had used the ram with which the apartment door was broken.

The bullet hit him in the right side, penetrating his heart and lungs.

Police haters and Holocaust deniers

"The officer only became a victim because he was a police officer," said Schmitt.

"That is a very reprehensible motive that is on the lowest moral level." The accused is a person who was against state institutions.

He denied the Holocaust and got caught up in conspiracy theories.

The drug dealer fled to his bathroom after the shot and allowed himself to be arrested there without resistance.

He had hoped for an acquittal until the end.

According to a statement read out by defense attorney Siegmund Benecken, he had expected an attack by a rocker group that had previously threatened him in the context of drug deals.

display

"He was simply scared and fired the shot in a panic," said Benecken in his plea.

The defendant was convinced that he was in a self-defense situation.

“He only shot to defend himself.” The judges didn't believe the 29-year-old.

During the search of the Gelsenkirchen apartment, around 1400 grams of marijuana and numerous weapons were found - including two air rifles, 100 rounds of ammunition, three CO2 pistols, two revolvers, knives, steel balls and rubber bullets.

"This is an arsenal that I have rarely seen in 20 years of judging," said Schmitt.

The defendant had not commented on the allegations himself, apart from a brief apology at the end of the trial.

The conviction of armed drug trafficking was also included in the conviction of life imprisonment for murder.

The verdict is not yet legally binding.

Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) had spoken of the "blackest day in the history of the special forces" in NRW after the fact.

The officer was the first in the history of the country's special forces to be killed in an operation.

The special unit was founded in 1974.