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Less than five months after the rampage in Trier, the public prosecutor charged the driver with fivefold murder.

In addition, the authorities accuse the 51-year-old German of attempted murder in 18 other cases, 14 of which involved dangerous or serious bodily harm, as the public prosecutor announced on Thursday in Trier.

The gunman raced through the Trier pedestrian zone in his SUV on December 1, 2020.

With the intention of “killing or at least injuring as many people as possible”, Bernd W. drove “indiscriminately and purposefully towards passers-by” who were “unsuspectingly”, the public prosecutor said.

Five people were killed in the act: a nine-week-old girl, her father (45) and three women aged 73, 52 and 25.

The man's motive was still unclear, said senior public prosecutor Peter Fritzen.

"He essentially claimed that he had no memory of the details of the crime."

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The public prosecutor's office is currently assuming that he acted out of personal motives.

It was said that he was single, unemployed, without a permanent address and apparently frustrated by his personal circumstances.

The expert assumes a psychosis

According to a preliminary assessment of a psychiatric expert, he also suffers from a psychosis.

The Trier district court will decide on the question of culpability in the main hearing, said Fritzen.

The psychiatric expert's report is not yet available.

So far, there have been no indications of a complete cancellation of the culpability.

According to the investigation, the 51-year-old turned into the pedestrian zone in the heavy SUV at around 1:45 p.m. on the day of the incident and accelerated sharply.

Among other things, he raced from behind towards a family on a shopping spree.

He stopped a woman on a bicycle and knocked over a couple.

He caught a student from behind: She was thrown through the air and died instantly.

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The people who survived the attack suffered significant injuries of varying degrees of severity.

Several people are so seriously injured that they still have to be treated clinically today.

A 14-year-old is still in inpatient rehab treatment.

A 63-year-old man has been in a kind of vegetative state in a clinic since the act.

In addition, many of the victims are psychologically traumatized.

At the time of the crime 1.12 per mille in the blood

The gunman was said to have been drunk at the time of the crime: the alcohol concentration in the blood was 1.12 per mille.

When driving the 800 to 900 meter long route, it was sometimes more than 80 kilometers per hour.

He used the car as a “public hazard,” said Fritzen.

Therefore, the murder characteristics of the treachery and the commission of the crime are met with publicly dangerous means.

The 51-year-old was arrested shortly after the crime and has been in custody ever since.

The rampage had caused lasting grief in Trier.

Citizens put up candles in many places: at the places where people were torn to their deaths and at the Porta Nigra - in memory of the victims and their families.

Trier's Mayor Wolfram Leibe (SPD) said in the days that followed: "Trier mourns, Trier suffers, but Trier does not give up."

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So that acts like these can never happen again, the city council decided on a concept on Wednesday evening to make the city center safer: The city is divided into ten zones, which are separated from each other by barriers.

A “crossing” from one zone to a neighboring zone is no longer possible.

"This is to prevent that vehicles can pick up a high speed on long straight stretches," said a spokesman for the city.

For this purpose, bollards, solidly anchored benches and seating stones will be placed in 38 locations.