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Defendant in court: Not a long-planned act

Photo: Monika Skolimowska / dpa / picture alliance

The Berlin regional court has sentenced a man to twelve years in prison for killing his three-month-old baby.

It found the 38-year-old guilty of manslaughter.

The defendant spontaneously decided to drown his second child, the verdict said.

"He couldn't bear this screaming anymore at that moment and didn't just want to stop it for the moment." However, no answer was found in the trial to the question of why.

The man was in a depressive phase, but was fully responsible.

Not a long-planned act

The defendant confessed to having clothed his son in an apartment in the Neu-Hohenschönhausen district on August 11 last year and placing his head underwater in a children's bathtub.

It happened in a “nervous breakdown”.

He deeply regrets.

“I did the worst possible thing,” said the man, who worked in the software industry at the time.

The 38-year-old was about to prepare a bottle for the boy when the child started screaming again, the verdict continued.

The father took the baby and a children's bathtub, went into the bathroom and filled in water; his goal was to drown the boy.

The defendant then waited in the next room until splashing could no longer be heard.

It was not a long-planned act.

Dead baby in the trunk

The partner and their then five-year-old daughter were not in the apartment at the time of the crime.

The man had taken the dead baby to a hospital in the trunk of his car, where he was arrested a short time later.

The charge was initially based on murder with base motives.

However, these were not established during the trial, according to the court.

The public prosecutor had also pleaded for manslaughter and demanded 13 years in prison.

The lawyer for the child's mother, who was a co-plaintiff in the trial, pleaded for a life sentence for murder.

The defendant killed his son out of “blatant selfishness,” said the co-defendant’s lawyer in her plea.

The child bothered him.

The defense attorney argued for “seven or eight years in prison” for manslaughter.

His client “acted out of desperation and helplessness in an exceptional situation.”

The 38-year-old also had reduced criminal responsibility due to an autism spectrum disorder.

The verdict is not yet legally binding.

bbr/dpa