MUNICH – A German court handed out long jail sentences to two teenagers yesterday for the fatal beating of a Good Samaritan whose efforts to stop them bullying other children has made him a symbol of civil courage for the public.
Dominik Brunner (50) died shortly after he was beaten at a railway station in the Munich suburb of Solln nearly a year ago.
He had tried to protect four 13- to 15-year-olds from Markus Schiller (18) and Sebastian Leibinger (17), who threatened the younger children and tried to steal their money.
Mr Brunner was posthumously awarded Germany’s federal cross of merit, one of the country’s highest official honours, for acting while other people at the station stood by and watched.
The court in Munich sentenced Schiller, who is now 19, to nine years and 10 months in jail for murder and Leibinger, now 18, to seven years for bodily harm with fatal consequences.
Judge Reinhold Baier said that Mr Brunner had been brutally kicked after he had been knocked to the ground.
Defence lawyers had sought shorter sentences, arguing that the escalation of violence was partly Mr Brunner’s fault.
It emerged during the trial, which was closely followed in German media, that Mr Brunner threw the first punch in a fight which escalated on the platform after starting in the train. Mr Brunner had told the four younger teenagers to stay out of it.
The cause of death was heart failure resulting from a heart condition of which he was unaware. – (Reuters)