German Justice
On Wednesday, the Hamburg state court convicted el Motassadeq of 3,066 counts of accessory-to-murder and sentenced him to 15 years in jail. Assuming no time off for parole or good behavior, this works out to be just under 1.8 days for every accessory to murder charge.
Many papers have stated this was the maximum sentence that could have been imposed by law for these charges. I do not understand this. I understand that German law gives a maximum sentence of 15 years for those guilty of accessory-to-murder. However, each count is a different charge. Why couldn’t the court have sentenced him to 15 years for each count or approximately 50,000 years in prison to ensure he spent the rest of his life behind bars? If any of my German readers have comments on this, please let me know.
Update: Paul (USA) emails that:
IIRC under German law you can't be convicted more than once for the same crime. The crime was "accessory to 3066 murders" that's one crime. There were not 3066 seperate murders, there was one set of actions that ended up killing 3066 people. One action = one crime.It's like someone robbing your house. They get arrested for robbery one time, not once for each item they steal. ( actually, they probably get away with it ;) )
If Paul is correct, that explains a lot. Of course, there were also a few other charges, but this would make such a light sentence a bit more understandable. I'd promote changing the law for future situations, but I'm not going to criticize any nation for following their own laws in this matter. That is completely within their right as a sovereign nation. And given their law, they gave him a harsh sentence.
Further Update: Axel (Germany) emailed me and confirmed Paul's understanding. He also had some interesting comments that I'll share in a new posting.
