“The fact that there were no deaths is due to chance alone,” Judge Bernd Rösch said while reading the verdict.
The defendant Georg R. entered the school in the city just south of Nuremberg with clear criminal intent and had wanted to kill as many people as possible, the judge added.
In addition to the prison sentence, the defendant, who was 18 when he attacked the Carolinum Gymnasium, will undergo long-term psychological therapy.
Armed with an axe, knives and Molotov cocktails, Georg R. managed to injure 15 people.
Two girls were severely injured. One suffered burns from a Molotov cocktail that hit her face, while another was hit in the head with an axe several times, sustaining life-threatening skull and brain injuries. The attacker was stopped after being shot by the police.
During closing arguments public prosecutor Jürgen Krach described the defendant as a “highly criminal, arrogant personality.”
Meanwhile the judge said that Georg R. had not only wanted to kill, but to gain the attention of the world. Rösch also described the defendants motives as hatred for himself, his school, and his teachers.
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