Germany: Man sentenced for shoving boy in front of train

A 41-year-old man who fatally pushed a boy in front of a train in Frankfurt last year has been sentenced to confinement in a psychiatric clinic, a court ruled on Friday.

As the man suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, the Frankfurt regional court found that he was unable to be held legally culpable, owing to his mental illness.

Still, presiding Judge Jörn Immerschmitt ruled that the defendant continued to pose a danger to others and that there was still a high risk of him carrying out violent acts in the future. 

He will now be admitted to a long-term psychiatric clinic.

Tragic attack

Last July, the man attacked a woman and her 8-year-old son at Frankfurt's main train station, throwing both of them onto the rails in front of an arriving passenger train. The woman was able to roll out of the way and survive, but her son was killed instantly.

He'd also attacked a 78-year-old woman who fell on the platform and broke her arm.

During a hearing last week, the defendant told the court he was "infinitely sorry, especially for the family of the eight-year-old boy killed by my actions."

Court rules boy's death as murder

Prosecutors were pursing charges of manslaughter, attempted manslaughter and violent bodily harm. 

The court in the end ruled that the man's actions constituted murder and attempted murder. 

The presiding judge said the man had acted intentionally and waited for the arrival of the passenger train to act. He moved to attack his victims as "the attention of his victims was not turned towards a potential danger but rather directed at the arriving train." 

Read more: German prosecutors open murder investigation into Eritrean in Frankfurt

The defendant is a refugee from Eritrea who had been living for years in Switzerland. Prior to the attack in July last year, Swiss police had been searching for the man after he locked up his wife and three children before traveling to Frankfurt.

The attack sparked outrage across Germany, as well as calls for better safety measures on train platforms. The victim's family also called for better programs for providing mentally ill people with treatment before they commit serious crimes.

rs/msh (AFP, dpa, epd)