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Duderstadt District Court: Defendant doctor in the courtroom

Photo: Swen Pförtner/dpa

A doctor from Duderstadt near Göttingen has been sentenced to a suspended sentence for false mask certificates in the corona pandemic and other allegations. The suspended prison sentence is one year and two months, as the presiding judge of the Duderstadt district court announced. Carola J. was also convicted of incitement to hatred and insulting officials. She had previously confessed to the crimes.

With its verdict, the court followed the demands of the public prosecutor and the defense. Before the single day of the trial, both had agreed on a sentence of between one year and two months and one year and six months in prison on probation. The confession was a condition for this agreement. In addition to her suspended sentence, the 57-year-old must pay 1,000 euros to the Sternlichter children's and youth hospice in Göttingen.

The court saw it as proven that the doctor had issued 16 certificates so that people did not have to wear corona protective masks. According to the information, she knew that the patients had no illnesses that spoke against wearing a mask. In addition, she is said to have said at a rally in Herzberg am Harz that the corona measures were worse than the Holocaust. She also insulted several officials.

Two other charges were dismissed. It was about defamation against another doctor who vaccinated people against Corona, as well as two so-called certificates of inability to vaccinate. Although there were no medical reasons, she confirmed that two children could not be vaccinated against measles.

Carola J. is a well-known face in the corona denier scene. At a demonstration in Hanover, the daily newspaper reported, she untruthfully claimed that nine people had died after being vaccinated in a retirement home near Duderstadt. She doubts the existence of a pandemic and considers the mRNA vaccine to be a “lethal gene injection that will cost many lives.”

Carola J. had initially fled to Mexico before the start of the trial and was only arrested on the basis of a European arrest warrant in December when she returned to Europe in Zurich, Switzerland. A short time later, however, she was released again. The arrest warrant was suspended subject to conditions. She had to surrender her passport and pay a deposit.

wit/dpa/AFP