Germany: man jailed for fatal attack on homeless men

BERLIN – A Berlin court has convicted a man of manslaughter, attempted manslaughter and causing bodily harm for pouring gasoline over two homeless men and setting them alight outside a suburban railway station last year. One of the victims later died of his injuries.

The Berlin district court said 48-year-old Aleksandr T., a German-Russian dual citizen whose full name wasn’t released in line with German privacy rules, was sentenced to eight years in prison on Tuesday over the July 22 attack at Schoeneweide station. It said that his motive was anger over a previous argument.

The court said the defendant was intoxicated at the time of the attack, but rejected his argument that he had stumbled and accidentally set the two men alight.

One of the victims died on Nov. 9.