display
Three former students from a Bamberg grammar school received suspended sentences of two years for stolen Abitur examination tasks.
It was a planned act with "criminal energy", said the judge when the verdict was pronounced on Monday in front of the Bamberg district court.
Two of the accused broke into the director's office in May 2020, broke into the safe and took exams in German, English and Latin.
The 19-year-olds received a youth sentence of nine months for damage to property and theft, with a two-year probationary period.
Since the third defendant had left the building before the tasks were stolen, he received a six-month youth sentence for damage to property, with a two-year probationary period.
The verdict is not yet legally binding.
display
The public prosecutor's office had demanded a youth sentence of one year for all three defendants, suspended to two years probation.
The investigators assumed that one of the students had already borrowed a master key from the secretariat under a pretext in November 2019.
Imprints and photos were taken in the school toilet, with which a counterfeit master key could be ordered on the Internet.
The burglars were very professional, the investigators said at the time.
But “technical and digital traces” ultimately led to a high school student.
According to the Bavarian Ministry of Culture, around 33,000 test subjects were given substitute tasks after the act in May 2020. In court, the three young men apologized to the injured students, the school, the director and the Ministry of Education. “In the beginning it was a thirst for adventure,” said one of the defendants. “Recognition” was also a reason. At the time of the crime, the then 18-year-olds were not aware of the consequences.