There is always a fire in the Heilbronn district until the police catch a suspect. The man is with the fire department. The deeds are a cry for help, he says. Now the court has to decide.
Heilbronn – After months of arson in Gundelsheim (Baden-Württemberg) and the surrounding area, an accused firefighter awaits the verdict. The 32-year-old has to answer before the court in Heilbronn for seven fires between April 2019 and November 2020.
Among other things, according to the indictment, he set fire to two cars, hundreds of haystacks, two barns, a residential and an inn and a clubhouse. At that time, the damage totaled around half a million euros.
Because there was a shed near a house where a family of four slept, the man is charged with attempted murder. The family was able to react in good time and was unharmed. The alleged arsonist admitted several, but not all, acts in court. He does not want to have seen the house by the barn fire, but a fire expert contradicted this.
The public prosecutor’s office is demanding ten and a half years’ imprisonment for the trained cook, who had only recently joined the fire brigade of the volunteer fire brigade. The man was “very well aware that people live there,” emphasized the prosecutor in her plea. The motive for the acts was an urge for recognition. In contrast, the defendant tried to explain the fires as the result of a depressive disorder. His actions were a cry for help to attract attention, “so that I can be helped,” said the 32-year-old. His defense lawyer considers seven to eight years imprisonment to be sufficient.
Why do firefighters become arsonists?
In the trial, Judge Roland Kleinschroth had already accused the defendant of having, as a witness after the fires, directed suspicion to others. The lawyer had stated that he did not agree with his statement that he wanted to be caught. The German had frightened the inhabitants of the small town for months.
It is by no means the first time a firefighter has been in a dock following arson this year. Among other things, a 43-year-old man was sentenced to nine years and three months in prison in Heilbronn in mid-June. He had started several fires in his apartment as well as at a church and a police station in Marbach. The chamber had classified the act as attempted murder and attempted serious arson resulting in death. The man had declared that he started the fires because he was dissatisfied with the political system.
Firemen as arsonists? Of all things? In such cases, according to an earlier assessment by experts, the actual rescuers often want attention and reassurance. According to an older study by the Chair of Criminology at the Law Faculty of the Ruhr University Bochum, young firefighters in particular want to prove themselves in fire fighting. Arsonists in the fire brigade are still the clear exception. However, there are no reliable figures on arson firefighters. dpa
