In the case of infanticide in a sect in Hanau, a new verdict must be made.
In September 2020, the Hanau Regional Court sentenced the alleged leader of the religious community to life imprisonment for the murder of a four-year-old boy.
The Federal Court of Justice overturned this judgment on appeal by the accused, as the district court announced on Monday.
The federal judges have referred the case to the district court in Frankfurt, where a jury must conduct a new trial.
Jan Schiefenhoevel
Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.
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The child died in 1988, when the authorities assumed it was an accident.
According to statements by those who had left the sect, the police started new investigations a few years ago.
A second trial against the mother of the boy who was killed, who was a member of the community at the time, is currently underway at the Hanau district court.
In 2020, the Hanau judges saw it as proven that the four-year-old had been forced into a sack by his mother for a nap – but on the instructions of the cult leader Sylvia D. According to the verdict, the boy passed out due to lack of oxygen and choked on his vomit while Sylvia D. was the only adult in the house.
The federal judges criticized that the Hanau judges should have dealt more closely with whether the child was killed through active action or through omission by Sylvia D.
Her intention to kill had also not been investigated exhaustively enough.