A man accused of killing a gas station employee who asked him to wear an anti-Covid mask started Monday (March 21) in court in Bad Kreuznach in Germany.
Read alsoGermany goes to war against anti-vaccines
The accused, aged 50, is suspected of having fired on September 18, at the time of payment in a service station in Idar-Oberstein (Rhineland-Palatinate), on the cashier, aged 20. This murder had particularly shocked Germany, where a virulent anti-mask and anti-vaccine movement has formed since the start of the pandemic. The suspect, also on trial for illegally carrying a firearm, had an initial altercation with the cashier over wearing the mask, before returning an hour and a half later and shooting him at point-blank range.
The accused had, according to the prosecution, developed rage against the anti-Covid measures. “Since he knew he couldn’t reach the politicians, he decided to kill“The young employee, asserted prosecutor Nicole Frohn during the first hearing Monday morning. The trial, which is to take place until May, must in particular determine whether the accused was linked to groups on the internet likely to have incited him to take action. The obligation to wear a mask indoors has been extended in Germany in most regions, while the number of new contaminations with the Omicron variant remains particularly high in the country.
SEE ALSO – Covid-19: How Germany is coping