The suspect in several letter bombings in southwestern Germany was acquitted on Friday for lack of evidence. He was suspected of attacks at the beginning of this year at Lidl headquarters, among others, in which three people were injured.
Klaus S., now 67, from the Ulm area (Baden-Württemberg) was held responsible for sending three letter bombs to food companies. Two of those letters exploded. This happened on February 16 at aroma maker ADM Wild in Eppelheim (Heidelberg) and a day later at the Lidl headquarters in Neckarsulm (Heilbronn). One and three employees, respectively, were injured. S. was arrested two days later at his home.
The court in Heidelberg acquitted S. on the basis of expert reports. Doubts were raised about the suspicions against the sixties. His earlobes, the width and height of his face, and the color of his hairline differed from those of the partially masked person in CCTV footage from the post office where the bomb letters had been delivered. “They are most likely not the same,” said the Süddeutsche Zeitung say an anthropologist.
The court found the comparison of especially the earlobes and color of the hairline so convincing that it was “unlikely” that S. was behind the attacks. However, that could not be ruled out completely. Despite this, the retired electrician was given the benefit of the doubt. He was acquitted of bodily harm but must pay a fine of 1,800 euros for illegal possession of homemade cartridges with ignition.
circumstantial evidence
The Public Prosecution Service (OM) had demanded 4.5 years in prison against S. for causing explosions, inflicting dangerous physical injuries and attempting to do so. She only had circumstantial evidence (the homemade cartridges) but assumed that S. had built the three explosives herself to extort the food companies. In addition, she saw a connection with an extortion attempt in 2019 at ADM Wild.
During the trial, S. read a statement in which he maintained his innocence. “I am a decent citizen and hope for justice.” His lawyers asked for acquittal because “very little remained” of the points raised by the Public Prosecution Service to the detriment of their client. According to them, it was ‘very likely’ that he could not be seen on the surveillance images of the post office with which the public prosecutor wanted to prove S.’s involvement. The sixty-year-old is also not on the darknet and had no bitcoin accounts. “There are therefore indications that the attacks were perpetrated by someone else who is probably also responsible for the extortion attempts in 2019 against the food producer in Eppelheim,” the statement said. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on.
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